PR: Fantom's Free Comic Book Day

I'm not familiar with Jeff Howe, and haven't mentioned him here yet, so if anyone could pick up a comic of his comic for me, it would be appreciated.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY REMINDER Just a note before we get into the April Previews that Free Comic Book Day is next Saturday! Both Fantom Comics stores will be carrying the full run of free comics, but our flagship FCBD store will be at our Pentagon City Mall location. Please check our website for more details, which will be forthcoming over the next few days. But here's a brief summary of what's going on:   -Free comics! -Tons of $1 comics (almost literally true) -Local creator Jeff Howe signing and giving away the first issue of his to-be-released comic: Polis -Around a dozen Star Wars characters courtesy of the 501st Legion and the Rebel Legion (with a photo op mid-day) -Prize wheel running at least once an hour, from 11-8 -2 classes on making your own comic book (including actually making one on the spot) by Marvel editor and sequential art guru Mike O'Sullivan   See you there! Pentagon City Mall - 1100 South Hayes Street | Arlington, VA 22202 | 703-415-2094 Union Station - 50 Massachusetts Avenue NE | Washington, DC 20002 | 202-216-9478 www.fantomcomics.com

Dave the Wank's O'Shell strip

Dave (who presumably has a name other than 'the Wank') has written in to highlight his comic blog where he post strips bi-weekly. He wrote, "I am a comic artist living in DC. ...A short story comic of mine will appear in Grimalkin 4 this summer." Dave particularly highlighted the beginnings of a memoir - 'O'Shell'

PR: Free Comic Book Day at Cards, Comics and Collectibles!

Press Release For Immediate Release Free Comic Book Day at Cards, Comics and Collectibles   From the Store that Brings You the Baltimore Comic-Con...   REISTERSTOWN, MD - April 22, 2010 - In honor of 2010's Free Comic Book Day promotion, Cards, Comics and Collectibles of Reisterstown, MD will be celebrating along with the rest of the nation on May 1, 2009.  Come and meet artists JG Jones (cover artist of DC Comics' Superman Free Comic Book Day giveaway!), Frank Cho (Ultimate Comics New Ultimates) from 2pm-3pm, Steve Conley (Star Trek), and John Gallagher (Buzzboy)!   FCBD Special -- modern back-issues are only one dollar!  Oh yeah, and we're also giving away free comics while they last!  Our hours for Free Comic Book Day are 11am-7pm.   We'll see you there!   Our address:  100 A Chartley Dr., Reisterstown, MD  21136 For more information, call Cards Comics and Collectibles: 410-526-7410

Archie's new gay character featured in Post

Kevin Keller debuts as first openly gay character in Archie's Veronica Comics
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 23, 2010; C03

More local reviews of The Losers

Doesn't like it at all - The Losers - A monumentally terrible film based, loosely, on the comic book, By Tricia Olszewski, Washington City Paper April 23, 2010.

Sees a sense of humor in it - Humor salvages a would-be dud, By Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post Friday, April 23, 2010.

Examiner reviews The Losers, based on a Vertigo comic

'The Losers' is an aptly titled action flick, By: Sally Kline, Washington Examiner Movie Critic, April 23, 2010

Examiner article on Nate Beeler's award

Examiner's Nate Beeler wins international cartooning awardAlana Goodman
Washington Examiner 04/23/2010

April 28: Joe Sacco to speak to Prof Wenthe's class at AU

Professor Michael Wenthe writes in to tell us

Next Wednesday, April 28, at 2:10 P.M. in the atrium of the Battelle-Tompkins building here at American University, Joe Sacco will give a presentation and discussion of his work (notably _Footnotes in Gaza_) as the final event in my section of LIT 215: Writers in Print / in Person. Strictly speaking, this event will constitute the last class session for the course, so pride of place for the attendees will be my eighteen students (who discussed Sacco's work this past week), but we're holding it as an open, public event in in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Program here at AU and it will be generally advertised on campus.

Personally I've never heard Sacco speak, but I like his work. I'm sorry to miss this, but work is precluding my attendance.

Bill Day wins 2010 RFK cartooning award.

Boy, I'm a judge for the thing, and I still get scooped by Cavna. Anyway, congratulations to Bill Day for winning this year's RFK Journalism award for cartooning. Bill's work calling attention to the health problems of poor children was quite striking.

Here's what the Foundation put out:

Cartoon Winner: Series of cartoons, Bill Day, United Feature Syndicate: Cartoonist Bill Day sheds light on the continuing problem of infant mortality in America, especially among minority populations. His unusual special project creates clear and easily-readable cartoons, raising public awareness, partly through a grassroots movement that led to the introduction of legislation and policy improvements.

Nate Beeler wins this year’s Overseas Press Club award.

Nate Beeler has won this year’s Overseas Press Club award, according to this article. (OPC's server seems to have crashed.)

Congratulations, Nate!

Oh, and regarding today's cartoon, I think the tea-partiers are really ANTI-Federalists, since the Federalists including Hamilton, were in favor of more government, not less.

Tom the Dancing Bug, late of Wash Post, joins boing boing

Ruben Bolling sent a note in -

Starting today, the weekly comic strip "Tom the Dancing Bug" by Ruben Bolling will appear on the popular website Boing Boing, at http://boingboing.net/.  

See http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/21/introducingtom.html#more

Some more details at www.tomthedancingbug.com

Marc Singer on teaching Chris Ware

Marc introduces his class to Jimmy Corrigan.

Finder to Dark Horse - another article

Dark Horse to Publish Carla Speed McNeil's ‘Finder'
The acclaimed self-published series will now be reprinted by Dark Horse
By Calvin Reid and Heidi MacDonald -- Publishers Weekly, 4/20/2010

Festival Imagé updated schedule

Pulled from the Festival Imagé website, here is updated information.

Booksigning tonight!
-Tuesday April 20 at AFDC, 6:30 pm:

Exhibition opening "Les Trois Ombres" by Cyril Pedrosa


Book signing by Antoine Dodé and Cyril Pedrosa

At the Alliance Française. The opening reception and book signing are free but reservations are mandatory. 202 234 79 11



-Wednesday April 21st at MICA, 7 pm:

Presentation: Laurence Arcadias

Short Films from SUPINFOCOM and MICA students



At MICA/ free



-Thursday April 22nd at Letelier Theater, 7 pm

Short Films from SUPINFOCOM and MICA students



At Letelier Theater 3251 Prospect Street, NW, Upper Courtyard, Washington DC/ free for MICA students and AF members - General admission $8



-Friday April 23rd at AFDC, 6:30 pm

Lecture by Pascal Fioretto: "Humor in comics"



At the Alliance Française/ free for MICA students and AF members - General admission $8



-Saturday April 24th at MICA:



-2 p.m., Room 140: MICA illustration faculty member Alain Corbel presents his Sequential Art students’ exhibition

-2 p.m., Room 110: MICA students' animation on display

-3 p.m., Room 140: Workshop with Cyril Pedrosa and MICA students on the narrative process

-4 p.m., Room 140: Professional forum with publishers Yvan Alagbé (Fremok/France), Jérôme Martineau (Carabas Revolution/France) and Calista Brill (First Second Books/US)

-6 p.m., Main Court: Closing party


At MICA/ free




-Sunday, April 25 at MICA
2-5 pm: Room 140: Closing of exhibition by MICA's Sequential Art class

At MICA/ free

Caroline Small reads Moore's Swamp Thing for the 1st time

Ahh, you can't go home again - but you can vicariously enjoy the thrill of Caroline Small's discovery of Swamp Thing via the good offices of her buddy Chris (who's leading her down the comics primrose path - it's no longer "I'm just here to see Craig Yoe to keep Chris company..."). Read their dialogue at Muck-Encrusted Mockery of a Roundtable: Liberty, Fecundity, Perversity

U of MD's Diamondback's editorial cartoon controversy

University of Maryland's Dimaondback's April 13 Editorial cartoon By Jenna Brager

The above cartoon is causing a controversy apparently - at least enough of one that the Diamondback's editor felt compelled to apologize - but with a twist:

What I do apologize for, however, is for failing the cartoonist. If you’ve been around the backlash from the cartoon, odds are you already know that the drawing of the armband made many readers interpret the cartoon as a connection between Israelis and Nazis — the imagery of the Israeli flag armband is often found in highly anti-Semitic propaganda.

She hadn’t meant to make such a connection, and so a tiny part of a drawing sparked a plethora of letters, feedback and more than a hundred comments online. I knew the cartoon would spark debate, but where I failed in my job was not realizing the connotation of the armband. Instead of constructive conversation, all anyone wants to talk about now is how this comparison can be interpreted as hate speech. And so, I failed my cartoonist, who never intended to make that statement.

You can read the rest of his editorial here: From the editor: All apologies By Rob Gindes, April 18, 2010, but this looks like another tiresome tempest in a teapot to me, largely caused by a lack of drawing chops (sorry Ms. Brager).

Jim Dougan interviewed by Mark Ruffin

Washington D.C. comics writer Jim Dougan talks on well-received webcomic
DC Comic Books Examiner Mark Ruffin
April 19,2010

Another positive Kick-Ass review from a local woman critic

Kick-Ass Directed by Matthew Vaughn
A cultish super hero flick about misfits. And ass-kicking.
By Tricia Olszewski
Washington City Paper April 16, 2010

Baltimore Sun on French comics fest

MICA salutes French animation as an international force for artistic good
Students at French CGI school Supinfocom, and MICA, create animated shorts as personal art
By Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun April 15, 2010

Library of Congress to save the Tweet

This press release got picked up by some of the big papers like the Post and the Times, but why should we at ComicsDC care? Because a lot of comic book creators are Twitteratti - and Comic Book Resources put out a list of them this week. So now Washington will be a Mecca for those interested in what their favorite creator thought in 2010, in 140 characters or less. The historic ramifications are beyond imagining.

Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington DC   20540

April 15, 2010

Twitter Donates Entire Tweet Archive to Library of Congress

Twitter is donating its digital archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress.  Twitter is a leading social networking service that enables users to send and receive tweets, which consist of web messages of up to 140 characters. 

Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets per day from people around the world.  The Library will receive all public tweets—which number in the billions—from the 2006 inception of the service to the present. 

"The Twitter digital archive has extraordinary potential for research into our contemporary way of life," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.  "This information provides detailed evidence about how technology based social networks form and evolve over time.  The collection also documents a remarkable range of social trends.  Anyone who wants to understand how an ever-broadening public is using social media to engage in an ongoing debate regarding social and cultural issues will have need of this material."

Billington added: "The Library looks at this as an opportunity to add new kinds of information without subtracting from our responsibility to manage our overall collection.  Working with the Twitter archive will also help the Library extend its capability to provide stewardship for very large sets of born-digital materials."

In making the donation, Greg Pass, Twitter's vice president of engineering, said: "We are pleased and proud to make this collection available for the benefit of the American people.  I am very grateful that Dr. Billington and the Library recognize the value of this information.  It is something new, but it tells an amazing story that needs to be remembered."  Twitter's own take on the donation is posted on their blog http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/tweet-preservation.html.

A few highlights of the donated material include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (http://twitter.com/jack/status/20), President Obama's tweet about winning the election (http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676), and a set of two tweets from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964) and (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620).

The announcement came coincidentally on the same day the Library's own Twitter feed (@librarycongress) crossed 50,000 followers (April 14, 2010).

"I think Twitter will be one of the most informative resources available on modern day culture, including economic, social and political trends, as well as consumer behavior and social trends," said Margot Gerritsen, a professor with Stanford University's Department of Energy Resources Engineering and head of the Center of Excellence for Computational Approaches to Digital Stewardship, a partnership with the Library of Congress.

The archive follows in the Library's long tradition of gathering individuals' firsthand accounts of history, such as "man on the street" interviews after Pearl Harbor; the September 11, 2001, Documentary Project; the Veterans History Project (VHP); and StoryCorps.  While the Twitter archive will not be posted online, the Library envisions posting selected content around topics or themes, similar to existing VHP presentations.

The Library has been collecting materials from the web since it began harvesting congressional and presidential campaign websites in 2000.  Today the Library holds more than 167 terabytes of web-based information, including legal blogs, websites of candidates for national office and websites of Members of Congress.  In addition, the Library leads the congressionally mandated National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program www.digitalpreservation.gov, which is pursuing a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library's rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.

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PR 10-81
4/15/2010
ISSN 0731-3527