Stephen King midnight madness at Big Planet Comics

Big Planet's running an ad in the City Paper saying their Bethesda store will be open at 12:01 AM on February 7th (ie Wednesday morning) for any wanker... I mean hardcore fan... who wants to buy the new Stephen King "Dark Tower" comic, the one that's written by Peter David, not King, that is. I think Marvel is working with one store per area* to have this promo. I have no idea who's getting stuck working the midnight shift either, although there should still be some bars open even if it is Tuesday night.


*read the comment in which Joel corrects me to say that anyone could open early, but he was the only one in the area wise enough to accept the challenge. He and Greg will be manning the register. Stay tuned for further breaking updates, as they break.

Checking out this week's City Paper

Quite a bit in the paper (February 2 issue) this week. The cover article is one of the illustrated types they've done a bit lately, with pictures by Greg Houston.

Comics Greeks by Trey Graham reviews the play Rough Magic by comic book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and gives them the marketing-pleasing quote, "If you see only one play during the six-month-long Shakespeare in Washington festival, see Rough Magic."

The exhibit Shojo Manga! Girl Power!: Girls' Comics From Japan is reviewed by Jason Powell.

Feb 17: Cartoonists Take Up Smoking lecture

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 26, 2007
Contact: Jennifer Heilman, 202-782-2671, jennifer.heilman@afip.osd.mil
Steven Solomon, 202-782-2672, steven.solomon@afip.osd.mil

“WHEN MORE DOCTORS SMOKED CAMELS:
A CENTURY OF HEALTH CLAIMS IN CIGARETTE ADVERTISING”

WASHINGTON – The National Museum of Health and Medicine will host “When More Doctors Smoked Camels: A Century of Health Claims in Cigarette Advertising,” a free illustrated lecture and gallery talk presented by Alan Blum, M.D., on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 1 p.m., highlighting the exhibit “Cartoonists Take Up Smoking,” on display through April 1, 2007.
Week in and week out from the 1920s through the 1950s, tobacco companies used images of physicians and their implied endorsements to help sell cigarettes. Such advertisements appeared not only in most issues of Life, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, but also in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Through the years, cigarette advertising depicted doctors almost as often as movie stars and sports heroes,” said Blum, curator of the exhibit, and whose lecture will feature many such ads and vintage television commercials.
Although cigarette advertisements were banned from TV in 1971, their print counterparts did not completely disappear from medical journals until the 1980s.
Blum also cites recent ads, such as the one in Time and People Magazine in 2001 for a brand by Liggett called Omni, which claimed to have “less carcinogens.”
“Such hokum isn’t much different than the same company’s advertisements that proclaimed ‘Stay safe, smoke Chesterfield’ and ‘L & M, just what the doctor ordered’ in the 1950s,” he said.
He describes the creation of the filter, low-tar brands and “light” cigarettes as marketing ploys to allay public anxiety about smoking.
“Cartoonists Take Up Smoking,” is an exhibition of original newspaper editorial cartoons retracing the 40-year battle over the use and promotion of cigarettes since the publication of the landmark Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964. It also addresses complacency on the part of organized medicine, politicians, and the mass media in ending the tobacco pandemic.
The exhibit features 55 original cartoons by more than 50 nationally known American editorial cartoonists and is supplemented by smoking-related items, from the original newspaper headlines that inspired the cartoons to advertisements promoting the health benefits of lighting up.
In addition to the cartoons, several mini-exhibitions are on view, including the airline flight attendants’ battle to get Congress to pass the ban on smoking on commercial aircraft; a history of the Kent Micronite Filter, made from asbestos; the advertising of cigarettes in medical journals from the 1920s to the 1980s; and the selection of cigarette commercials and smoking scenes from TV and the movies.
Two preserved lungs from the museum’s anatomical collection—one showing the ill effects of smoking and the other a healthy lung—highlight the exhibit.
“Cartoonists Take Up Smoking” is curated from the collections of the University of
Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society that Blum founded and directs. It holds one of the largest sociocultural archives on tobacco, including more than 300 original editorial cartoon artworks on smoking-related themes.
“The wide ranging controversies surrounding tobacco are captured in the cartoons, from the misguided quest for a safe cigarette to the targeting of tobacco advertising to women and minority groups,” Blum said. “Cartoons on smoking have had an impact at both local and national levels. Editorial cartoons practically laughed Joe Camel out of town and helped pass countless clean indoor air laws.”
The exhibit will be on display at the museum, which is open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The museum is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue and Elder Street, NW, Washington, D.C. For more information call (202) 782-2200 or visit www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum. Admission and parking are free. For the online news release and to download images, please visit: http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum/news/pdf/Blum_Gallery_Release.pdf.

Disney on Ice contest entry

A couple of entries down, I mentioned the Examiner's contest. Well, I just sent in my entry with my name, address, email and phone number to contests@dcexaminer.com. Remember, winners will be chosen randomly and their entries will be printed in the February 6th paper.

So here it is - let the comments begin!

Lightly, the Princesses swirl on the ice;
Are there twelve? Or less?
No matter.
The Mouse will rule o'er all.

Mandatory weekly Richard Thompson message

A small drawing by RT snuck into the Post's local sections, Arlington/Alexandria in my case. It's an ad for the Corcoran College of Art and Design's Aspiring Artists program. Unfortunately, the pic isn't online.

Thursday's papers - the cartoon bits UPDATED

Uncensored image from Seattle P-I, photo by Todd Vanderlin.

Finally saw the Post, and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare marketing debacle played on the front page, above the fold as they say, with the middle finger salute pre-fuzzed out before the Post got the picture, obviating the need for those hard decisions. See
Marketing Gimmick Goes Bad in Boston; Light Devices Cause Bomb Scare by Michael Powell, Washington Post Staff Writer, .Thursday, February 1, 2007; Page A03 for an account of the ridiculousness.

There's a positive review of the Japanese Cultural Information Center's Shojo Manga exhibit in today's Express, and a short version of AP's article on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare in Boston in the Examiner. On the odder side, Kohl's has an ad on p. 7 of the Examiner for Sandra Boynton books, cds and toys as well as an ad for Disney on Ice celebrating "100 Years of Magic." I assume that's 100 years since Disney's birth because I'm pretty sure there wasn't any Disney on Ice in 1907. The ad asks for a poem of 100 words or less, sent to contests@dcexaminer.com on "Is the Disney Magic a part of your life?" to win tickets for 4 to the show. Oddly enough they say, "Winners will be randomly selected" so I wouldn't worry about the quality of the poetry.

Finally, the Express has a picture of Greg Bennett of Big Planet Comics on page E25, in his role in the band Jet Age. I believe this is the 3rd time they have run this pic.

Mister Ron's Basement blog

A bit off the beaten path, but long-time comics journalist (and Springfield resident, iirc) Ron Evry has been doing a podcast for several years. He reads out of copyright stories. It looks suspiciously like Ron's got 624 downloadable readings up as of this date.

At Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection website, librarian Randy Scott lists quite a few publications in The Comics Journal and Hogan's Alley.

#4 in local Comics DC bloggers profiles.

Speaking of comics chats on the Post website...

Suzanne Tobin used to host these "Meet the Artist" chats fairly regularly, but not lately. I recently linked to the Galifianakis one. However, there's a score or so in their archive, unfortunately not labeled by cartoonist. Don't miss the little "more news" link on the bottom which will take you to one more.

Post censors comic strips, again - Get Fuzzy this time

MetaDC and Ben Towle picked up that some papers, including the Post, were censoring marijuana jokes in Get Fuzzy last week. Ben's got the story, and the some of the strips in two posts - here and here. Fortunately Darby Conley's syndicate wasn't as worried as the Post and all the strips can be seen on the Comics.com website for a few weeks.

As is par for the course, the Post never mentioned this. You'd think the paper would have a bit more spine, and at least confess to their censorship.

Anyone like to try to recall other instances of the Post censoring, or "editing," (their preferred term) the comics? There have been several. In Sept 2005, a Dilbert strip showing assault by a porpoise was cut (Dave Astor had the story); in July 2005, they pulled a Boondocks strip and Suzanne Tobin defended their actions in a chat with Paul Gilligan of Pooch Cafe. (Hit refresh and the link will work - twofer!)

They had pulled Boondocks in 2004 and their ombudsman at the time Michael Getler noted, One year after refusing to publish a week's worth of the "Boondocks" comic strip drawn by Aaron McGruder, The Post did it again last week, only this time it didn't tell readers. The Post says that comics are edited just like any other feature of the paper and denies that this is censorship. Editors say last week's offering was racially offensive and used negative stereotypes of African Americans to lampoon TV reality shows. Last year The Post was the only paper, among 250 that buy "Boondocks," to drop it. This time seven other papers dropped it, including the Boston Globe. I disagreed last time, and this time, too. I think McGruder, who is African American, is a brilliant artist who has created young, black characters speaking with razor-sharp, satirical candor who say things that make us uncomfortable but also make us think. In January of 2004, Mike Peters of the Dallas Morning News noted that the Post dropped a BC strip, admittedly lame, The strip offered to newspapers today mocks the notion that two Asians could have flown the first airplane. The punchline: "Two Wongs don't make a Wright?" They've dropped other B.C. strips for religious sensitivity reasons too.

The aforementioned Boondocks was dropped in October 2003, the Boston Globe reported, "In an unprecedented move that angered readers and generated industry criticism, The Washington Post recently killed an entire week of "The Boondocks" comic strip with a story line suggesting the world might be a safer place if national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had a more active love life." As in the later event, the ombudsman Michael Gertler disagreed, noting on October 19, 2003 "I may need a refresher course in sensitivity training, but I also found the sequence of strips within the bounds of allowable satire. I don't know a thing about Rice's personal life, nor do the characters in the strip, and I think readers understand that. The "Boondocks" characters, and their creator, were being mischievous and irreverent, in their mind's view of the world, about a high-profile public figure, and that seems okay to me." A month earlier, a Doonesbury strip about masturbation was dropped. Boondocks also was skipped twice in January and October of 2002. There's a few more BC examples and Ted Rall's strip was dropped online in March of 2002 after his 9-11 Widows strip. Anyone else got any more?

Shojo manga show opens; lecture on January 30th

The exhibition "Girl Power! Girls' Comics From Japan" opened today at the Japan Information and Culture Center. Tomorrow at 6:30, the curator Masami Toku will present a free lecture on the history of shojo manga, or girls' comics Reservations are required. Reply to jiccrsvpwinter07@embjapan.org or (202-238-6949). This is the only night the exhibit will be open; normal hours are 9-5, Monday through Friday.

The Post ran a brief piece on it on Friday - "Comics That Draw a Feminine Crowd" by Lavanya Ramanathan (Friday, January 26, 2007; Page C11)

Post reviews Aguirre-Sacasa's comic book-influenced Shakespear

Unfortunately, in "Prospero's New Island: Manhattan - Rorschach's 'Rough Magic' Offers The Bard -- Comic Book Version," Nelson Pressley gives it a rather lukewarm review. He starts off promisingly, noting A number of the inside jokes are delicious, as when Melanie calls on the controllable Coriolanus to lend a hand. "Dumb as a stick, and a total mama's boy," Olivera's quick-thinking Melanie reasons. But overall, Pressley feels that great gobs of the script seem more suited to comic books than the stage, especially the ultra-dense plotting and ka-POW action sequences and concludes that it lack(s) a certain hoped-for magic.

I'll let you know what I think when I see the show.

See the article in The Washington Post, Monday, January 29, 2007; Page C02.

Good article on Chinese cartoonist in Post

About every five years, the Post runs an article on something to do with comics and China. Today it was Suicide Rabbit by Liu Gang, a vehicle for criticizing the establishment, if not the party. It's a good article by Edward Cody.

Jan 28 - Animation Show 3 at GWU

Both the GW Hatchet and the Express have articles today reporting that the Animation Show 3, a collection of shorts, will be shown at the Lisner Auditorium at 730 21st St, NW at 7 pm on Sunday for $11.

"Rough Magic" is also discussed on page E9 of the Express.

"The Adventures of Carrie Giver" comic book distributed to Congress

The Examiner's political gossip column by Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin reports today that the comic book "The Adventures of Carrie Giver" was distributed on Capitol Hill recently. The comic book deals with the cost to people, mainly women, who become primary care givers to disabled family members. And it has a cover by Neal Adams! You can buy a copy through that link, by the way.

The columnists talked to the group, and reported, "So which politicians like their proposals in comic book form? Social Agenda’s Theresa Funicello tells us the best responses she’s received from Capitol Hill came from the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio. In addition, Funicello says the real women’s division of the Department of Labor enjoyed the comic and asked for several copies. “Staffers were very amused and kind of stunned when we came around with these,” said Funicello. “They don’t usually get serious issues in comic book form.”"

Roll Call had the story too, but doesn't provide a free online version. The print version is "Adventures in Lobbying: Comic Books Help Put Caregiver Issues in the Spotlight" By Tom Gottlieb, Roll Call Staff, January 23, 2007.

The Onion peels for DC

DC is going to get the satirical parody newspaper, The Onion judging from an ad in today's Express. The ad is for an account manager and says "The Onion is coming to Washington...." blah, blah, blah, and will be published in partnership with the Express and the Washington Post(!). Of interest to us is the fact that the paper runs serious reviews of comics. I think it also runs some harder-to-find comic strips as well. And it's funny.

Nick Galifianakis, Washington Post illustrator

I'm working on a listing of cartoonists who regularly appear in the DC papers, and one of them whose work I especially like is Nick Galifianakis. His work appears bi-weekly or so in the Post, illustrating is ex-wife Carolyn Hax's advice column, "Tell Me About It." The picture here is from the January 12, 2007 column, but he's been doing them for years. He's a local guy, and this 2004 Suzanne Tobin chat is the only biographical bit that I know of. He was supposed to have a book out, but I don't know if that ever happened. I think he's got a very nice line, and hope he eventually does more than just advice column gag cartoons.

Hoopla! - new Arlington VA comic book review blog

Paul Weissburg has restarted his comic book review column as Hoopla! An online comic-book review column. I don't know Paul, and am just passing along the notice I got from the owner of Big Planet Comics.

Zippy around DC

I completely missed this one, but Zippy was at Arlington's Bob and Edith's diner right after Christmas. Cartoonist Brian Biggs has eaten there with me as well. Zippy's also popped into Rock Creek Cemetery in DC; Barry's Magic Shop in Wheaton (on Georgia Avenue, near the shopping mall); Ben's Chili Bowl in DC; the newly-reopened National Portrait Gallery; and the Lincoln Memorial. He's even made it out to Catonsville, MD.

Jan 27-Feb 25 Shakespeare in Washington

I can hear you all wondering, but there's a comics link here that my friend Liz pointed out. Rough Magic, a reworking of The Tempest, is written by Marvel Comics writer, and former area resident (and Big Planet Comics customer) Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. I'm going to try to catch this.

Jan 27 - Alternative comics fest at Dr. Dremo's

Today's Post reported today that Dr. Dremo's Taproom in Arlington will host DC Counter Culture Festival next Saturday that will include alt cartoonists selling their comix. Specifically listed in the Post were Jason Rodriguez, Little Foot and Angry Dog Press. It goes from 4 pm - midnight, and the bar's address is 2100 Clarendon Blvd.