Friday, May 28, 2021
Cavna on Yang cartoon controversy
Andrew Yang says a cartoon about him is a 'racialized caricature.' The N.Y. Daily News is defending it. [ Bill Bramhall; in print as N.Y. Daily News defended its Yang cartoon. To many, the racist trope is clear]
'The Little Mermaid' voice actor dies
Samuel E. Wright, voice of Sebastian the crab in 'The Little Mermaid,' dies at 72 [in print as Actor delighted millions as Sebastian the crab in 'The Little Mermaid']
Thursday, May 27, 2021
The Lily's comics from the past month
Catch up!
My life is work, sleep, repeat. What happened to balance?
I'm ready to take real charge of my life
I created an emergency kit for when I'm feeling down. Here's what's in it.
On my worst days, I really need to be reminded of how much I am loved
A (far from complete) list of the roles moms play
Moms aren't just caretakers, but jills of all trades, masters of everything
As a former foster parent, am I a mom — or something else?
Regardless of the title, I'm happy to just be part of my child's chosen family
Pandemic days are stifling. So I tried out this technique to build optimism.
With 'temporal distancing,' the goal is to imagine yourself in the future
I was nervous for my first covid-19 vaccine shot. Now, I can't wait for my second.
Despite trusting the science, I still had anxiety about possible side effects
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Matt Wuerker opines about NY Daily News cartoon controversy
The shocking Yang cartoon, in context [with Matt Wuerker; Bill Bramhall cartoon]
By Renuka Rayasam
Politico Nightly 05/25/2021
Monday, May 24, 2021
Things my kids learned outside of school this year [covid-19].
Things my kids learned outside of school this year [covid-19].
Sage Stossel
Washington Post (May 23 2021): B4
That darn de Adder, Agnes, and white cartoonists
Seeing red over a 'blue day' denied [Agnes letter]
Sheri Langford
What's black and white and White all over? [letter]
Sunday, May 23, 2021
May 25: Moment Magazine: The Man Behind the Masks (Stan Lee)
The Man Behind the Masks: Stan Lee and Marvel Comics with Journalists Abraham Riesman and Dan Raviv Tuesday, May 25 at 4:30 p.m. ET / 1:30 p.m. PT |
Stanley Lieber, better known as Stan Lee, revolutionized the comic industry and helped create superheroes like Spider-Men, X-Men, Black Panther and more for Marvel Comics. Join Abraham Riesman, author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee in conversation about Lee's complicated life and legacy with Dan Raviv, author of Comic Wars and former CBS News correspondent. Co-sponsored by Moment Magazine and the Association of Jewish Libraries in commemoration of Jewish American Heritage Month. |
Friday, May 21, 2021
The Post on Kentaro Miura
Remembering Kentaro Miura, legendary creator of 'Berserk,' which inspired countless fantasy stories
Weldon on MODOK
'Marvel's M.O.D.O.K.': A Goofy Supervillain Basks In A Comic Spotlight
Pop Culture Happy Hour May 21, 2021
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=998249784
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Kelly Marie Tran, star of Disney’s "Raya and the Last Dragon," joins The Post to discuss her varied roles and the power of representation.
Kelly Marie Tran, star of Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon," joins The Post to discuss her varied roles and the power of representation.
Michele Ye Hee Lee
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Tom King talks to John Suintres
Word Balloon's 16th Anniversary show Hosted By Tom King
May 10, 2021
Karen MacPherson retiring from Takoma Park Maryland Library
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| Photo credits: Bruce Guthrie |
Folks who've used the Takoma Park Maryland Library at the Takoma Park
Community Center or attended children's author events there were
accustomed to being greeted by the library's coordinator of children's
and teen services, Karen MacPherson. Karen recently announced that
she'll be retiring from the library on June 30.
Like many who
loved their jobs especially because of the interaction it provided with
customers, the pandemic took a heavy toll. While most places are
looking forward to reopening in full bloom in a near-post-pandemic
vaccinated world, the library building will be demolished in November,
being replaced 18-ish-months later by a new one. Operations will move
to temporary quarters in the interim.
 |
| Kwame Alexander and Karen |
Karen didn't start as a
librarian. As a kid, she loved reading and children's books. She
decided that she'd either be a reporter or a children's librarian. For
30 years, she was the former, working as a reporter. Originally with
the UPI in Richmond, she moved to Washington, DC and worked for Thomson
Newspapers, Scripps Howard News Service (DC correspondent for the
Albuquerque Tribune), and finally the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. She was
working for the latter when the 9/11 attacks happened. The next day,
she was on her way to report from the Pentagon when she was told to turn
around because there were rumors of another pending attack. She
wondered why she was risking her life when she now had a family (two
children and a husband who was also a reporter) and decided to switch to
Plan B.
The next year, she enrolled at the University of
Maryland in College Park to get a Master's in Library Science. In 2006,
she started at the Takoma Park library.
At the library, she
created a new teen section and a number of programs like the Banned
Books Club for teens. In 2009, the latter was recognized with the
American Library Association's (ALA) John Phillip Immroth Award, which
"seeks out and recognizes personal courage and contributions to
intellectual freedom." For 23 years, she wrote a weekly column on kids
books for Scripps Howard News Service. Later, she wrote occasional
kids book columns for the Washington Post.
In 2016, she served on
the prestigious Caldecott committee. The Randolph Caldecott Medal is
an annual award to the illustrator of the "most distinguished American
picture book for children." The committee which selects the award
winner as well as the runners up is made up of 15 members chosen by the
Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the
ALA. Publishers send in books to be considered (there were said to be
700 works submitted in 2009) and the committee considers each. It's a
time-consuming job and committee members typically serve just one year.
 |
| Kate
DiCamillo and Karen |
In
the year Karen was involved, the winning book selected was Sophie
Blackall's "Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous
Bear".
In 2013, DC's iconic independent bookstore, Politics and Prose,
approached the library about hosting out-of-store children's author
events. Over the years, 75-ish have graced the venue including Kate
DiCamillo ("Because of Winn-Dixie", "The Tale of Despereaux", "Flora
& Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures"), Jason Reynolds ("As Brave
as You", "Ghost (Track series)", "Miles Morales: Spider-Man"), Katherine
Applegate ("The One and Only Ivan", "Animorphs"), Jon Klassen ("Sam and
Dave Dig a Hole", "I Want My Hat Back", "This Is Not My Hat"), Tom
Angleberger ("The Strange Case of Origami Yoda") and Cece Bell ("El
Deafo"), and Sophie Blackall ("Finding Winnie: The True Story of the
World’s Most Famous Bear", "Hello Lighthouse").
MacPherson saw many comics creators come through the library. Over the years, I personally attended events there for Alex Alice ("Castle in the Stars"), Alexis Frederick-Frost ("Hocus Focus"), Ben Hatke ("Nobody Likes a Goblin"), Eleanor Davis & Drew Weing ("Flop to the Top"), Emily Jenkins ("A Greyhound, a Groundhog"), Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers ("Imaginary Fred"), Fabien Cousteau ("Great White Shark Adventure"), Gail Carson Levine ("Stolen Magic"), Gareth Hinds ("Macbeth"), Jay Hosler ("Last of the Sandwalkers"), Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm ("The Evil Princess vs. The Brave Knight"), Jérémie Royer ("Audubon: On the Wings of the World"), Jonathan Roth ("Beep and Bob"), Jorge Aguirre ("Dragons Beware!"), Juana Medina ("Juana and Lucas"), Julie Fogliano ("Just in Case You Want to Fly"), Kate Dicamillo ("Leroy Ninker Saddles Up"), Kevin McCloskey ("Real Poop on Pigeons"), Mac Barnett and Matt Myers ("Rules of the House"), Christian Robinson ("Josephine" and "Last Stop on Market Street"), Ruth Chan ("Where's the Party?"), Ryan T. Higgins ("Mother Bruce"), Sophie Blackall and John Bemelmans Marciano ("Witches of Benevento"), William Joyce ("Bently & Egg..."), and Yuyi Morales ("Dreamers/ Soñadores").
In retirement,
Karen plans to keep busy -- studying French, playing piano, traveling --
and is also open to volunteering at the library as needed. It will be
nice to be able to see her there again because she's been missed!
PR: New book by Von Allan, a friend of ComicsDC
Love, Laughter, and Loss—A Comics Collection now available in Hardcover
This has been a long-time coming, but I'm very pleased to announce the publication of my latest comics collection! And, for the first time, this is a premium hardcover! Titled LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION, this edition features nine short stories in full colour. The printing and colour fidelity are top-notch; in fact, I don't think my work has ever looked this beautiful.
These stories have appeared in print before, mainly in two separate periodical collections that are now out of print. The first periodical was titled WIZARDS FOR HIRE — CHEAP! while the second periodical was titled STORIES! 2015 TO 2019. While I was very happy to see these two editions published, keeping saddle-stitched editions in print was, frankly, a pain. Publishing LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS is a much better way of keeping them in print. On top of it, many of these stories were recoloured for this new hardcover. And that means a number of these stories have never looked this good before. Am I happy with it? Oh yes!
All of these stories have also been released on this very website in webcomic form. In other words, there's no need at all to guess on what's included in the collection. All of these stories can be found at https://www.vonallan.com/p/comics.html — and you can navigate from there to find each individual story. The stories included in this hardcover collection are as follows (with links to make direct navigation even easier):
I still need to take some photographs from the physical proof copy I have, so I'll update this post when I have some. In the meantime, I just want to reiterate how pleased I am with this edition. I was actually pretty nervous about it; I've never printed a hardcover before and there were a few logistical issues that I ran into that slowed production as I took my time ensuring the best quality control possible. I was holding my breath when the physical proof copy arrived and I was pretty nervous when I "unboxed" it. My fears were misplaced; everything turned out beautifully.
If you love comics, especially independent/small press comics, I think you'll fall in love with this edition. I know I have — and that's saying something!
If you love comics, especially independent/small press comics, I think you'll fall in love with this edition. I know I have — and that's saying something!
Links to Purchase
LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION is still "propagating" out there, but here are some initial purchasing links that I know of for sure. More will be added as they appear.
- Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1989885160;
- Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1989885160;
- Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1989885160;
- Amazon.de: https://www.amazon.de/dp/1989885160;
- Amazon.fr: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1989885160;
- Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/3fkS3Ca;
- Bookfinder: https://bit.ly/2Rn9nhT.
PR: NoVa's Sal Buscema on a new comic book for a new company
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Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Cavna talks to webcartoonist KC Green
The 'This Is Fine' dog is back. And his creator wants to show he's more than a meme. [ KC Green, "Funny Online Animals"]
That darn Clay Jones
Our buddy Clay Jones was briefly blocked from Facebook yesterday.
DDD has the story -
Israel-Palestine Cartoon Sends Clay Jones to Facebook Jail
Monday, May 17, 2021
Flugennock's Latest'n'Greatest: "Mow The Lawn"
From DC's anarchist cartoonist, Mike Flugennock -
"Mow The Lawn"
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=3224
So, the other day I'm doomscrolling the news from Gaza, and I stumbled over this 8 year-old Truthout article that somebody dug up and tweeted. The callousness of Washington foreign-policy think tanks — and the Israeli general public — is perversely spectacular:
"Israeli hardliners joke about the periodic need to decimate each new generation of Palestinian militants as "mowing the grass," a process underway
again in new bombardments of Gaza. This ugly metaphor has also penetrated the think-tank world of Official Washington, as ex-CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray learned:
In early 2010, one of Washington DC's most prestigious think
tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel's December 2008- January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: 'It's unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn'."
----------
"Likening Palestinians to Blades of Grass", Elizabeth Murray,
Consortium News, in Truthout 11.17.2012
https://truthout.org/articles/likening-palestinians-to-blades-of-grass/
Mike Flugennock, Political Cartoons: http://www.sinkers.org/stage
and follow me on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@flugennock
"Mow The Lawn"
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=3224
So, the other day I'm doomscrolling the news from Gaza, and I stumbled over this 8 year-old Truthout article that somebody dug up and tweeted. The callousness of Washington foreign-policy think tanks — and the Israeli general public — is perversely spectacular:
"Israeli hardliners joke about the periodic need to decimate each new generation of Palestinian militants as "mowing the grass," a process underway
again in new bombardments of Gaza. This ugly metaphor has also penetrated the think-tank world of Official Washington, as ex-CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray learned:
In early 2010, one of Washington DC's most prestigious think
tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel's December 2008- January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: 'It's unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn'."
----------
"Likening Palestinians to Blades of Grass", Elizabeth Murray,
Consortium News, in Truthout 11.17.2012
https://truthout.org/articles/likening-palestinians-to-blades-of-grass/
Mike Flugennock, Political Cartoons: http://www.sinkers.org/stage
and follow me on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@flugennock
On the passing of comics scholar Tom Inge
Word is moving through the comics academic community that M. Thomas 'Tom' Inge passed away last week. I didn't know Tom deeply, but for a long time I sent him comics ephemera for his collection at VCU, and articles about Edgar Allan Poe in comics. He was a big fan of my friend, Richard Thompson too.
Tom and I probably met at an ICAF meeting, but we became better acquainted when I was called up from the minors to fill in for two Harvey Pekar interviews at SPX. I did them, and then transcribed them for John Lent's International Journal of Comic Art. Not wanting to miss a wider audience, I offered them to Tom for whomever might do a book in Tom's Conversations with Comics Artists intervew series at the University Press of Mississippi.
Tom instead wrote back, changing one direction of my life - "How about your doing the Pekar volume in the Conversations series? I don't have anyone signed up for him, strange to say, and you already have two interviews I assume. Have you resources to locate the previously published ones? " ( Jul 19, 2006)
Never having edited or compiled a book before, I wrote back that I'd think about it, and then a day later, "Tom, I'm still mulling it over although I'm leaning towards doing it." (Jul 20, 2006)
So I did it, and Harvey Pekar: Conversations came out in 2008. Not learning from experience, I wrote to Tom about doing a collection of Herblock interviews. He responded favorably to me and the Press' editor -
"[Mike] raises the question of doing another volume for the series on the political cartoonist Herblock. I think that is an excellent idea. It is a shame that we have had not titles yet on political cartoonists, and Herblock is a very good place to begin (we need them on Bill Mauldin, Jeff MacNelly, Pat Oliphant, and Doug Marlette, among lots of others as well)." (May 1, 2008)
Unfortunately the Herblock Foundation never really got behind the idea, and they controlled his rights, so the idea faded away. Tom didn't though and he continued to be a major force in comics studies. I saw him for the last time at the PCA meeting in DC in 2019, I think? I snuck into the meeting and just said hello in passing after watching his panel. One always assumes there's more time...
Tom was one of the best and most productive members of the first group of academics to study comics. He was an immense help to my second career, and to many others, and the field is much richer for his time spent cultivating it. He'll be missed by many.
Sports cartoons found at estate sale - Christy Walsh and Morris Scott
I grew up in the tail end of the life of the sports cartoon. Bill Gallo was still at the NY Daily News, and the local Bergen Record had a sports cartoonist. By now, the field is mostly gone, but as Eddie Campbell has written about it, in its heyday, it launched the careers of many a cartoonist.
This past weekend I found an original sports cartoon and a pritnted comic strip at an estate sale.
The original cartoon is by Christy Walsh, a failed sports cartoonist. However, Michael Cavna, of the Washington Post, used to be a sports cartoonist himself and he put me on the track of finding out Walsh was the Kevin Bacon of his day and knew everybody. He might have not been a great cartoonist, but he became a fantastic sports agent and syndicator and became a rich man, representing Babe Ruth and others. (UPDATE 5/26/2021: I gave this to the Library of Congress' Prints & Photos division)
 | |
| Blue, All-American First Baseman, 1923 |
Comics historian Steven Rowe tells me "Blue is wearing a cap with what seems to be the letter D.
Since Lu Blue played first base for Detroit in 1923, Blue is indeed likely to be Lu Blue."
The other item is a clipping of a comic strip about the World's Series in baseball by Morris Scott from the Boston Post, October 8, 1913. The New York Giants are facing the Philadelphia Athletics.* I've cleaned the image up; the original is perfectly legible, but yellowed from being displayed for years.
Two crack comics historians helped out with tracking this bit of history. Rodrigo Baeza provided me with the artist identification, and Art Lortie found a couple of the articles that Rodrigo suggested from Newspaper.com. Here's 3 items about Morris Scott, who appears to have died rather young, as well as another comic strip from 1918.
*Rod Beck sent in the following bit of baseball history - "Frank Baker (shown on the back of the elephant) was known as Home Run Baker. The year 1913 was in what is called The Dead Ball Era. Baker led the American League in home runs from 1911 thru 1914 with 11,12,10 and 9 homers respectively. The Philadelphia Athletics beat the New York Giants 4 games to 1 to win the 1913 series."
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| Boston Post March 3, 1918 |
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| Obituary, BP Dec 5, 1922 |
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| "Scott with Squad," BP March 3 1918 |
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| Funeral, BP Dec 7, 1922 |
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