Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Cartoonist Draw Blood This Saturday!


The fifth annual 
Cartoonists Draw Blood
American Red Cross blood drive is this Saturday! It’s the blood drive where participants who donate blood can meet local National Cartoonist Society cartoonists, and get a free sketch.

Saturday, October 20 

9:00AM to 1:00PM at 
Palisades Community Church  
5200 Cathedral Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20016

Participating Cartoonists: 
Carolyn Belefski and Eric Gordon 9:00 - 11:00AM 
Steve Artley and Joe Sutliff 11:00AM  - 1:00PM










Tuesday, October 16, 2018

10/20: "Cartoonists Draw Blood" American Red Cross blood drive

From Carolyn Belefski:

The "Cartoonists Draw Blood" American Red Cross blood drive is this Saturday, October 20 from 9AM to 1PM at Palisades Community Church (5200 Cathedral Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016). 

Shift A is Carolyn Belefski and Eric Gordon from 9AM-11AM, then Shift B is Steve Artley and Joe Sutliff from 11AM-1PM. 

The drive has been going on since 2013, and it's a blood drive where participants donate blood, meet cartoonists, and get a free sketch. Also -- I'm happy to report I've been working with several chapters of National Cartoonists Society to establish and expand the drive in other cities and it is looking like Pittsburgh (Wayno), Manhattan (Ed Steckley), and Long Island are hosting CDB drives this fall... and all this started right here in Washington, DC.



CARTOONISTS DRAW BLOOD
DATE: October 20, 2018
TIME: 9AM to 1PM
PLACE: Palisades Community Church (5200 Cathedral Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016)

 
Schedule your appointment in advance with this link (walk-ins are also welcome): 

Monday, October 15, 2018

Cartoon from artleytoons

My cartoon, The King and Him on Trump's comments today regarding the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudis.
                  —Steven G. Artley, artleytoons

©2018 Steven G. Artley • artleytoons • ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




PR: This weekend - Anime USA 2018 - New Guests & Epic Gaming



Anime USA 2018: New Guests and Epic Gaming
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Click here, enter code NEWS2018 and get 15% off a regular/silver 3 day membership.

A 20th Anniversary Celebration of the
Past, Present and Future of Our Fandom.

October 19th - 21st, 2018

New Guests

Epic Gaming

 

 

New Guests

Anime and Manga Producer
Industry  Insider
Toshifumi Yoshida

Toshi has spent more than half his life reading comic books and watching cartoons for a living. During those two-plus decades, he has worked on an anime magazine called ANIMAG, spent 12 years producing anime at Viz Media and 2 years as a producer at Bandai Entertainment. Of course, he's also been translating the whole time.

Toshi's past credits include the English-language versions of "Ranma 1/2", "Inuyasha", "Kurokami: The Animation", and "Gurren Lagann" as well as numerous amounts of manga translations such as "Negima!" for Del Rey, "Eureka Seven" for Bandai Entertainment, and "Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service" for Dark Horse. He is currently the Senior Producer for The Pokemon Company International overseeing the localization of the Pokemon TV series and movies into English and 16+ languages across Europe and Latin America.

Lastly, Toshi swears that he has nothing to do with Ken Watanabe's character being named Detective Yoshida in the upcoming Detective Pikachu movie from Legendary Pictures next year. Go to https://www.animeusaregistration.org/, enter code NEWS2018 to get 15% off a regular/silver 3 day membership and experience all that is Toshi at Anime USA 2018.


Educational Guest / Author
Robert V. Aldrich

Robert V. Aldrich's writing is the result of mixing high-quality 80's cartoons with mid-tier anime and bargain basement literature. Throw in a few dashes of web comics and professional wrestling and you get something truly unique. Based out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, RVA is a veteran author who published his first book back in the halcyon days of 2001. A prolific writer online, most of his work these days can be found at his website TeachTheSky.com. He's returning to AUSA to promote his newest books: Proton and RocKaiju. Go to https://www.animeusaregistration.org/, enter code NEWS2018 to get 15% off a regular/silver 3 day membership and come see Robert at Anime USA 2018.


Returning DJ Extraordinaire
Jay Nak

Jay Nak has been entertaining for 15 years, playing tunes and making dancers happy at the convention scene. His first foray into performance started the longtime event "Cosplay Dance Off", which has been running strong at AnimeUSA, Katsucon, Magfest, Escape Velocity, AMA, NYAF, and other conventions.
 
Jay has previously performed as a DJ at the Katsucon rave and is a Katsucon lounge DJ. Escape Velocity also claims him as one of their own, organizing and performing for their Space Party and Dance party, as well as curating parts of their programming tracks.
 
When Jay isn't playing tunes, he likes to build fantastic creations! He currently is professionally tied to his wife, Barb, as co-collaborators for commissioned costume and replica makers with MabieKnot Cosplay and Designs. Go to https://www.animeusaregistration.org/, enter code NEWS2018 to get 15% off a regular/silver 3 day membership and come listen to DJ Jay Nak.
  
For more information on these and our other guests, please visit Anime USA at http://www.animeusa.org

 

 

Epic Gaming

Come join us in our giant 20,000+ sq ft gaming room filled with all sorts of wonderful goodies! Enjoy the glory of 70+ free-play arcade machines from various collectors including Arcade Impact, Tokyo Attack, and Arcade Buffett. We will be bringing 80s classics, variety games, the hottest new rhythm games, and all the best arcade cabinets straight from Japan! We will also have 40+ consoles with everything from retro classics to the latest releases! Whatever gaming mood you're in, we've got you covered!

Feeling more competitive and want to show off some skill? Join us for one of our many tournaments! With Dragon Ball FighterZ, Tekken 7, Super Smash Bros WiiU, Mario Kart, Windjammers, and a day one SoulCalibur VI tournament, there are plenty of ways to show us what you've got! Come be streamed and win various prizes!

Do you want to see the newest of the new? Check out the indie game section where developers showcase their innovative ideas and games! Browse and play test indie games alongside Microsoft, who will be on-site presenting their hot new games! Don't miss out on the fun!

Love having to go fast and also not knowing where to go? Watch and join Mystery Fun House as we show you the ways of blind speedrunning. Marvel in the magic of figuring out what to do and doing it as quickly as possible. Enter the blind speedrunning contest to win some cool prizes!

For more information on our gaming, please visit Anime USA at http://www.animeusa.org
 

This is just a small part of everything we have in store for you this year. Stay tuned for future newsletters for more information on all the exciting things to see and do at Anime USA 2018!
 
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Todd Klein looks at Carla Speed McNeil’s Lettering

Flugennock's Latest'n'Greatest: "Christ The Redeemer (after Paul Landowski)"

From DC's anarchist cartoonist Mike Flugennock:


"Christ The Redeemer" (after Paul Landowski)
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=2617

To nobody's surprise, as part of its long-standing tradition, the Wall Street Journal has endorsed fascist Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil's upcoming Presidential elections. This is a politician so horrible that even Marine Le Pen won't touch him with somebody else's ten-foot pole.

"Forgive them, Father – but get me the hell out of here!"
–Christ the Redeemer

Nov 17: Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh in DC

from Just World Educational 's newsletter

Our biggest program this fall will be the two-week-plus tour that famed Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh will be making of the United States, starting November 6. This tour has the title "Picture This! Life & Art in Palestine". This tour, a follow-up to his great first tour of the United States last year, will bring Mohammad to numerous great venues in North Carolina's "Triangle" area, the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington state, NYC, New Jersey, and Washington DC.

We're still finetuning the details of most of Mohammad's events with our great local hosting partners. We'll post and circulate a full tour calendar as soon as we can.


 

 

But we can already tell all those of living in the "DMV" area around Washington DC that one highlight of the tour will be the talk he'll be giving at the November 17 opening of an exhibition of his distinctive linocut art, at Gallery Al-Quds, in Foggy Bottom, DC. (At the right, you can see gallery director Dagmar Painter-- in black and white-- and me reviewing and choosing some of the pieces for the exhibition, back in December.)

At the Nov. 17 event, Mohammad will be in conversation with Robert ("Bro") Russell, who's the director of Cartoonists Rights Network International, for which Mohammad is the a key Middle East Ambassador.

Be sure to mark your calendars and tell all your DMV friends to come to this super-special event!

The show will stay in the Quds Gallery until Saturday, December 15, when it will culminate in a fun live auction of any pieces that remain unsold.

Another signal thing Mohammad will do on this tour will be to headline a fundraiser for the Jenin Freedom Theater, planned for November 15, in Manhattan... Stay tuned for details...

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Troy-Jeffrey Allen stars in new Previews podcast

PREVIEWSworld Weekly 10/10/18: Walking Dead Day, NYCC!

Troy-Jeffrey Allen and Thea Curley
Watch the debut episode of PREVIEWSworld Weekly, your first destination on your way to your local comic shop!

Lambiek and Henk - Comic Shopping in Amsterdam

by RM Rhodes

One of my favorite things to do when I travel to other countries is to visit their comic book stores. My French is good enough that I prefer to visit shops that sell French comics, which is the predominant publishing language of most of northern Europe. When I was in Amsterdam, my VRBO was almost directly across the street from Lambiek, which is one of the best and oldest comic shops in the city. This proved to be unfortunate for my wallet.
The famous Lambiek sign. On more than one occasion, 
I saw someone taking a picture of themselves in front of the shop.
They have only recently moved into this new location, but I like the store much better than the old place. The organization is much more logical, and the smaller space focuses the attention better. Upstairs, all of the comics are in Dutch. Downstairs, all of the comics are English. It's more or less understood that an American would not be silly enough to buy English-language comics in mainland Europe - they're always cheaper in America. The only exception is for super-rare things that you did not know existed, like the Robert's Rules of Order illustrated by Will Eisner that I found on my last visit.
The Interior of Lambiek. Dutch upstairs, 
English and French in the basement.
However, there's a hidden shelf of French comics around on one of the plinths in the basement that had a fantastic selection. I ended up putting back more books than I wanted to, but the shopping experience was fun. There was a complete run of the first ten issues of A Suivre (a popular French anthology magazine from the early 80s) and a variety of four or five album runs of characters I did not recognize. I love finding stuff that I did not know existed - it acts as a good reminder that there is always some facet of this medium that I have not yet encountered.
image
The interior of Lambiek. No, really.
The owner's name is Boris and he has an attitude about him that reminds me of Bill Boichel and James Sime and other comic book shop owners I have known in my life. We got into a long conversation about Enki Bilal and which period of his art we preferred, and why. I showed him some of my comics and he recommended an artist named Wasco, who designed their windows in the back.
image
Windows at Lambiek by Wasco
Among my purchases was a very early book by Milo Manara, from when he was much more obviously a Moebius clone. There was also a very meta Jacques Tardi book that I bought and a collection of Pilote specials from the 70s that I didn't buy (but know I know they exist!). I wish I could say that the most amazing thing I found on the trip was at Lambiek, but that's not true. The real find of the trip was actually down at the book market on the Spui, but that's a completely different story.


As a compare and contrast, I also sought out the comic shop Henk, which specializes in selling American and English-language comics. Henk is actually two shop fronts, back-to-back, with an entrance on either side of the block it sits on. One entrance looks out over the Gelderskade canal, technically just outside the Red Light District, and the other entrance is in the Chinatown portion of the Red Light District.

Henk knows its customers. One of the two shop fronts caters to manga fans and has an extensive collection of vinyl statues alongside the shelves of English-language manga reprints and other comics-adjacent tchotchkes. There was even a small section of videos. That end of the shop was packed with people. That's also where the cash register was, along with the shelf of indie graphic novels that would appeal to a manga reader who wants to venture into new territory but eschews superhero comics.
The manga end of Henk
The other end of the shop was laid out very much like an American superhero comic book store, complete with basement location, spinner racks, back issue bins, and walls lined with Marvel and DC collected editions and posters. It was also the empty portion of the store. The whole store looked more or less like an American comic book store, but the non-manga part was almost painfully accurate in its cultural reproduction.
The non-manga end of Henk
Even among the indie graphic novels, there were really no European comics available in the store, unless they were English-language translations that had somehow crept back around into indie legitimacy. This was consistent with my Lambiek experience, which had no manga or superhero comics whatsoever. The conclusion I drew from this was that the audiences for the various kinds of comics don't significantly overlap - or, at least, don't overlap enough to make it worth the while of comic shop owners to carry everything in one store.
The indie graphic novel shelf - this is the extent of the overlap between Lambiek and Henk
In a city as physically small as Amsterdam, it is astonishing how close together everything is. The two shops are little more than a seven minute walk apart, but the blocks they sit on are wildly different. Lambiek is in a quiet residential street. The more obvious side of Henk is on a main commercial thoroughfare. Not coincidentally, the Nieumarkt (which has a street market on the weekends) sits between both shops. Arguably, both benefit from the proximity, but Henk is a more prominent spot to catch overflow foot traffic. Weirdly, taking this entrance drops you into the room dominated by back-issue bins and surrounded by superhero comics.
The entrance by the Nieumarkt
From that perspective, the desolate back issue bins which face the canal share a temperament with Lambiek's basement of the best of English language indie comics. (Seriously, Lambiek is probably the primary Dutch customer of Fantagraphics, Koyama Press, and Drawn and Quarterly.) Both are places where someone wandering by can find a quiet place to browse with the understanding that shopping is not buying. They are, in some ways, part of the long-term appeal of the Nieumarkt as a destination.
Chinatown entrance of Henk
On the other hand, the manga end of Henk was bustling. Part of it may have been the almost fanatical devotion to filling every flat surface with something that could be purchased. Having said that, there were more people in that portion of Henk than I ever saw at any one time in Lambiek. Location-wise, the entrance to the more popular end of Henk is in a very busy tourist neighborhood alleyway on the edge of the Red Light District, but still very much part of it.

During the middle of the afternoon, the atmosphere of the alleyway is quiet, but the largely unseen hustle of prepping for the evening rush is everywhere. Almost every Chinese food restaurant in the Red Light District is clustered here. That may or may not have anything to do with the popularity of the manga section. And the tendency of tourists to duck into any random shop may keep the place busy as well.

At night, the alleyway is completely different. Henk's is closed by seven, but the debauchery of the Red Light District never really stops, it just takes naps. By 8, the whole area is filled with people looking for food. The place is a wall-to-wall zoo. Walking through the alley in the morning is like walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans when the crowds have gone. And that is where you have to go to visit the most prominent manga store in Amsterdam, open by lunchtime.

It is fascinating to me that the various comics markets are so obviously delineated in Amsterdam. That might be because the markets are so clearly segregated by language - which isn't as big a barrier in cosmopolitan, multi-lingual Amsterdam as it is in English-first, English-only America. It also indicates that the the markets serve very different demographic groups, which makes sense.

The Dutch comics section in the main part of Lambiek feels like a small, specialty book store, with a variety of popular works in various genres, and a diverse clientele. Those who really want to go diving through the English and French spillover are encouraged to do so. Amsterdam has visitors from all over Europe and many books are not translated into Scandinavian languages. 

Henk is, for the most part, a clone of an American comic shop, aimed at the same demographics. Interestingly, that demographic (white males between 18-35) is the same target demographic as the Red Light District itself. The superhero comic section of Henk is set up to encourage intoxicated impulse buys.

If you find yourself in Amsterdam and you have had your fill of art museums, go look up the comic book shops. They are worth the visit and very easy to find.
__________________________________________________________

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.