Dark Horse editor loves Finder

Dark Horse editor Rachel Edidin loves Carla Speed McNeil's Finder.

Rob Ullman's Capital's fangirl

Check out Rob Ullman's Washington Capital's fangirl.

Washington Times positive about local 'Annie'

'Annie' gets Olney in the holiday mood
by Terry Ponick
Washington Times' Curtain Up! blog December 1, 2010

Frank Cho on cover of DC magazine

Blog co-author Randy T reports "Frank Cho is on cover of DC magazine -  while his article is pretty terse, he did get the blurb and illustration on the cover: http://media.modernluxury.com/digital.php?e=WASH

 Up, Up and Away! Local comic book artist Frank Cho goes intergalactic and proves he’s a superhero in his own right
By Tiffany Jow
DC (December 2010): 48

  You can also download a pdf of the issue.

Oddly enough, the cover is Michelle Obama, getting the Cho superheroine treatment.

Monkey See blog on Tangled

Holmes, Linda.  2010.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Disney Princesses And People We're Pulling For.

National Public Radio's Monkey See blog (December 3): http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/12/03/131779569/pop-culture-happy-hour-disney-princesses-and-people-we-re-pulling-for and http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/blog/2010/12/20101202_blog_pchh.mp3

International Journal of Comic Art 12:2/3 is out

The latest issue of the International Journal of Comic Art #12:2/3 is out. 712 pages in this issue. It's time to renew for 2012 at $45 / year.

George Washington University's Philip Troutman has a piece in the current issue, and the exhibit review section has work by me on local shows.

Table of Contents:
John A. Lent 1 Editor’s Note

Fabrice Leroy 2 Yves Chaland and Lue Cornillon’s Rewriting of Classical Belgian Comics in Captivant: From Graphic Homage to Implicit Criticism

Giancarla Unser-Schutz 25 Exploring the Role of Language in Manga: Text Types, Their Usages, and Their Distributions

Rick Marschall 44 Nurturing the Butterfly: My Life in Comic Art Studies

Derik A. Badman 91 Talking, Thinking, and Seeing in Pictures: Narration, Focalization, and Ocularization in Comics Narratives

Enrique Garcia 112 Coon Imagery in Will Eisner’s The Spirit and Yolanda Vargas Dulché’s Memín Pinguín and Its Legacy in the Contemporary United States and Mexican Comic Book Industries

Kerry Soper 125 From Jive Crows in “Dumbo” to Bumbazine and “Pogo”: Walt Kelly and the Conflicted Politics Reracinating African American Types in Mid-20th Century Comics

Robert Furlong and Christophe Cassiau-Haurie 150 Comic Books, Politics, and Manipulation: The Case of Repiblik Zanimo, the First Comic Strip and Book in Creole

Grazyna Gajewsk 159 Between History and Memory – Marzi: Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia

Matthew M. Chew and Lu Chen 171 Media Institutional Contexts of the Emergence and Development of Xinmanhua in China

Jörn Ahrens 192 The Father’s Art of Crime: Igort’s 5 Is the Perfect Number

Marco Pellitteri 209 Comics Reading and Attitudes of Openness toward the Other: The Italian-Speaking Teenagers’ Case in South Tyrol

Iren Ozgur 248 Have You Heard the One about the Islamist Humor Magazine?

Weidan Cao 251 The Mountains and the Moon, the Willows and the Swallows: A Hybrid Semiotic Analysis of Feng Zikai’s “New Paintings for Old Poems”

Candida Rifkind 268 A Stranger in an Strange Land? Guy Delisle Redraws the Travelogue

Daniel Stein 291 The Long Shadow of Wilhelm Busch: “Max & Moritz” and German Comics

Hannah Miodrag 309 Fragmented Text: The Spatial Arrangement of Words in Comics

Christopher Eklund 328 Toward an Ethicoaesthetics of Comics: A Critical Manifesto

Muliyadi Mahamood 336 The Malaysian Humor Magazine Gila-Gila: An Appreciation

Roy Bearden-White 354 Inheriting Trauma in Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

Philippe Gauthier 367 On “Institutionalization”: From Cinema to Comics

Marc A. Londo 376 Mr. Tap and His African-American Cartoons of the 1940s/1950s

Marcia R. Ristaino 395 Two Linked by Another, Ding Cong: Interviews with Betty McIntosh and Shen Jun

Shelley Drake Hawks 402 Ding Cong’s “True Story of Ah Q” in Art and Life

John A. Lent and Xu Ying 425 Fengjing – The Town That Claimed Ding Cong

Phillip Troutman 432 The Discourse of Comics Scholarship: A Rhetorical Analysis of Research Article Introductions

Ross Murray 445 Referencing Comics: A Comprehensive Citation Guide

Sylvain Rheault 459 Curvy Alterations in “Gaston” by Franquin

Miriam Peña-Pimentel 469 Baroque Features in Japanese Hentai

Yuko Nakamura 487 What Does the “Sky” Say? – Distinctive Characteristics of Manga and What the Sky Represents in It

B.S. Jamuna 509 Strategic Positioning and Re-presentations of Women in Indian Comics

Meena Ahmed 525 Exploring the Dimensions of Political Cartoons: A Case Study of Pakistan

Camila Figueiredo 543 Tunes Across Media: The Intermedial Transposition of Music in Watchmen

Rania M. R. Saleh 552 Making History Come Alive Through Political Cartoons

Bill Kartalopoulos 565 Taking and Making Liberties: Narratives of Comics History

Toni Masdiono 577 An Indonesian Bid for the First Graphic Novel

John A. Lent 581 In Remembrance of Five Major Comic Art Personalities

Perucho Mejia Garcia 588 Ismael Roldan Torres (1964-2009) of Colombia: A Memorial Tribute

Zheng Huagai 598 Tributes to Two Famous, Anti-Japanese War Cartoonists: Zhang Ding and Te Wei

John A. Lent 614 The Printed Word

620 Book Reviews

644 Exhibition and Media Reviews

696 Correction

697 Portfolio

Dec 4: Cartoon Cult exhibit opens in Vienna

“Cartoon Cult” is an art show celebrating contemporary art forms of cartoons, comics, digital animation, illustration, anime, and videogames (emphasis on original characters).

OPENING RECEPTION! SATURDAY DEC. 4TH 7-11PM
The Soundry, 316 Dominion Road, Vienna, VA 22180


ARTISTS:
Ivan Collich
Matt Somma
Matt Dembicki
Jeannette Herrera
Heather Moore
Joseph Galletta
Kristen Fritch
Xenia Latii
Chris Day
Bobby Moore
Jeff Block
Ralph Paine
Matthew Mehmel
Cavan Fleming
Annie Lunsford
Steve Loya
Christiann MacAuley

Ketcham and Hotchkiss' Navy cartoon posters from World War 2

Courtesy of the US Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the National Museum of Health and Medicine has scans of these Navy posters from World War 2.

One is by Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham -



The rest are by Hotchkiss -

Cavna interviews Maureen Dowd comic book creator

Brenda Starr meets Batgirl: Artist gives MAUREEN DOWD her own bio-comic book (UPDATED)
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog December 2 2010.

He also got a few quotes including one by Stan Lee, on the passing of an Archie artist -

RIP, Archie Comics & Marvel artist John 'Jon' D'Agostino
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog December 1 2010

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat With Kevin Ward

Now online at the City Paper - Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat With Kevin Ward, by Mike Rhode on Dec. 2, 2010.

Brad Meltzer, former local comics writer, interviewed on his new tv show Decoded

Brad Meltzer, a former local comics writer, answered some of my questions on his new tv show Decoded. First, here's some information about him from the press release for the show.

 

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Fate and six other novels. His first non-fiction work Heroes For My Son, a collection of historical heroes, recently hit the New York Times bestseller list. Meltzer is also author of the critically acclaimed comic books Identity Crisis and Justice League of America and is the first author to ever reach the #1 spot on both the New York Times and the Diamond comic book bestseller lists simultaneously. Meltzer's books have spent over eleven months on bestseller lists, and have been translated into over 25 languages.

  
Best-selling author Brad Meltzer loves a good mystery. A history enthusiast known for his immaculate research, he has studied and written about some of America's most revered institutions and documents. But sometimes he uncovers unverifiable stories that keep him awake at night. Is there another hidden message buried in the Statue of Liberty? What happened to the White House cornerstone that's been missing for two centuries?  Could it be true that John Wilkes Booth lived for 40 years after his presumed death under an assumed identity? 

In the new 10-part series BRAD MELTZER'S DECODED, premiering on Thursday, December 2 at 10 p.m. on HISTORY®, Meltzer scours secret clues, symbols and conspiracy theories to unravel some of society's most provocative enigmas. And the deeper he digs into the past, the more we learn about our future. 
 
Together with a team of experts – Buddy Levy, a professor and journalist who assumes there is always more than meets the eye; Christine McKinley, a mechanical engineer who believes only what she can prove; and Scott Rolle, a trial lawyer who is skeptical by nature – Meltzer hunts for answers to questions that have perplexed us for centuries yet have never been fully investigated.
 
The premiere episode rolls out with "The White House" as the team gets to the bottom – literally – of a mystery concerning the cornerstones of our democracy.  Laid by the ultra secretive Freemasons, this landmark piece of stone vanished. The search for the cornerstone has been on for over 200 years, everyone from Harry Truman to Barbara Bush have looked for it. Is it a coincidence…or is there a secret conspiracy tied to these stones and the buildings they were meant to support?

 

ComicsDC: Brad, to provide a figleaf of cover for this appearing on ComicsDC - you used to live in suburban Maryland, and you still write comics, correct?

 

Brad Meltzer: Of course.

 

 ComicsDC: How did the idea for the tv show come about?

 

Brad Meltzer: One of the heads of HISTORY read my novel The Book of Fate, which dealt with Freemasons and the secret codes that Thomas Jefferson used when he was President -- and then said, "We should do a show like this."  And y'know what that is?  That's dumb luck by me.

 

 ComicsDC: How did the topics get picked?

 

Brad Meltzer: I keep a book (now books) of every idea I've had over the years -- some stupid and dumb and not fleshed out -- and some that'll feed characters and comic books and anything else.  And there were just tons of historical details that I'd love to know the answers to, but just couldn't use in the books.  So really, I'm stealing from my future novels.

 

ComicsDC: How much research do you personally do or supervise?

 

Brad Meltzer: For the novels, I do all the research myself.  But for the show, HISTORY said, you give us the mysteries and we'll give you the research team to solve it.  The problem is, I still couldn't help myself and sometimes found myself digging as well.

 

ComicsDC: Which is your favorite show?

 

Brad Meltzer: Of Decoded?  I love this first one airing tonight -- about the first piece of the White House.  That was the very first idea I suggested, and it really set up a good model for the show.  Sure, we're not digging it up from below the White House -- but we do answer questions like, is it hollow?  And what's inside?  As for surprises, the John Wilkes Booth one is the one that kept me awake.

 

ComicsDC: Navy medical historian Jan Herman is a friend of mine - I've known him for 20 years - and he hasn't convinced me yet that Lincoln's murderer John Wilkes Booth may have escaped, as one of your shows examines. Did any of the shows change your mind about an historical 'truth'?

 

Brad Meltzer: I hear you.  And I started the Booth show thinking the exact same thing.  But wait till you see Booth's family telling their side of the story.  It's like "Who is Donna Troy?"  Will mess you up good.

 

ComicsDC: Is the show going to continue? If so, do you know what other topics you'd like to look into?

 

Brad Meltzer: It depends if we get more viewers than my last try at television -- Jack & Bobby.  There, our ratings were 14.  Not a 14 share.  Fourteen people.  Total.

 

ComicsDC: Is it really possible to solve a mystery for a tv show?

 

Brad Meltzer: Especially with historical shows, the biggest barrier is simply that so much of the physical evidence is gone or unavailable.  When Lee Harvey Oswald was dead, theories started that it wasn't him in the grave.  So they dug him up and proved it was.  If you want to solve the Booth mystery, dig up the grave.  For now, the government still won't allow it.  But when you watch our Lewis episode, the ballistic evidence and the other details we find definitely add a huge piece to the puzzle.  

 

ComicsDC: Your next book is about secrets in a museum or archives - can you tell us anything about that?

 

Brad Meltzer: The Inner Circle comes out 1/11/11 and for that one, I got help with the research from a former President of the United States.  So I'm now gearing up that release.

 

ComicsDC: What is your favorite museum or archives? 

 

Brad Meltzer: The National Archives.  No question.  It's the attic of the US Government.  Library of Congress is a close second.

 

ComicsDC: And bringing it all back home, do you have any plans to write another comic book? How about adapting your existing works to graphic novels?

  

Brad Meltzer: Love to write more comics.  Without question, comics still have had the biggest influence on my writing.  More than film.  More than novels.  More than anything.  They're still the best.

 

PR: Brad Meltzer's Decoded premieres on the History Channel tonight at 10pm/9c

Former local comics writer new tv show, Brad Meltzer's Decoded, is on the History Channel tonight.
http://www.history.com/shows/brad-meltzers-decoded/videos/behind-the-scenes-brad-meltzers-decoded#brad-meltzers-decoded-preview

Ian Sattler's come a long way from Big Planet Comics

DC Comics promotes Eddie Berganza and Ian Sattler
December 1, 2010 by Kevin Melrose

Ian was a clerk at the Bethesda store, years ago.

Dec 14 LIVE cartoonist/illustrator Richard Thompson at Big Planet Comics

As Mad used to say - Accept no imitations!

On Tuesday, December 14 from 7-9 PM, cartoonist/illustrator Richard Thompson will sign his newest Cul de Sac collection, Shapes and Colors, at Big Planet Comics, 4908 Fairmont Ave, Bethesda, MD. 301-654-6856.

--

Joel Pollack

Big Planet Comics
Bethesda
4908 Fairmont Ave
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
301-654-6856

Nick Galifianakis pics

Here's a few shots of Nick Galifianakis signing his new cartoon collection book. Buy it now... or the Newfie may visit. My City Paper interview with Nick is here.

Matt Dembicki posts photos of Party Crashers exhibit

Right here.

I still haven't made it back to the exhibit.

Drew Sheneman, latest editorial cartoonist casualty, interviewed on Comic Riffs

Exit Interview: Buyout in hand, Star-Ledger cartoonist DREW SHENEMAN plans a career 'reinvention'
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs December 1, 2010
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2010/12/exit_interview_star-ledgers_dr.html

Weldon reviews 'Special Exits'

It's a nice, touching review -

 

Going Gentle Into That Good Night Goes Awry: The Graphic Memoir 'Special Exits'

by Glen Weldon

National Public Radio's Monkey See blog December 1, 2010

  http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/30/131699453/going-gentle-into-that-good-night-goes-awry-the-graphic-memoir-special-exits

Discovery Channel comic books article in today's Examiner

It's this article -

Discovery Channel expanding into comic books
(AP) – November 29 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9JIk6JddX6PYnGdsVIv8p8BPBlQ?docId=323a0d02552f4b9cbb5b556c8671ca1e

Denys Wortman in DC (sort of)

James Sturm's been working on rediscovering Denys Wortman, an early 20th century cartoonist, and is doing a book on him with Drawn & Quarterly. A few articles have been appearing about the exhibit on Wortman that's in New York-

Cartoonist's Depression-Era NYC Drawings Featured in East Harlem Exhibit; The works of cartoonist Denys Wortman will be on display at the Museum of the City of New York through March 20.
By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer, November 19, 2010

Gotham Chronicle: Sharp Eye, and Pencil
By CAROL KINO
New York Times November 21, 2010

-and Allen Holtz put a nice early article online -

All N.Y. Poses For Wortman's Cartoons
Straphangers in the Subway and Flappers at Soda Fountains Are Unsuspecting
Models for New York World Artist Who Blends Comedy With Grim Reality in
"Metropolitan Movies" for N.Y. World
by John F. Roche (E&P, 3/23/29)

-tonight I was on the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art site and put in Wortman's name - and they have a collection of his papers (note the untranscribed interview)-

Wortman, Denys, b. 1887 d. 1958
Cartoonist
New York, N.Y., Mass.
Cartoonist, New York, New York. Born in Saugerties, New York, Wortman studied engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology and at Rutgers College. From 1906-1909, he studied at the Chase School of Art in New York City with Kenneth Hayes Miller and classmates George Bellows, Edward Hopper, and Rockwell Kent. Beginning as a landscape painter from the "Gloucester School," Wortman's career changed when his drawings of life as a sailor in World War I were published in the New York Tribune. From 1924-1954, his daily cartoons "Metropolitan Movies" and "Mopey Dick and the Duke" mirrored New York life in the New York World-Tribune.

Denys Wortman papers, 1887-1980
2.0 linear ft. (partially microfilmed on 1 reel)
Reel(s): 3014

Biographical material, letters, business records, notes, writings, art work, photographs, printed material; and an untranscribed interview.

REEL 3014: Thirty-five letters to Wortman from friends and colleagues (1910-1957), including Gifford Beal, James Cagney, Stuart Davis, Guy Pene Du Bois, Juliet and Pier Hamilton, Edward and Jo Hopper, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Herbert Satterlee, John Sloan, Austin Strong, Frank Sullivan, William Sulzer, Gluyas Williams, and Mahonri Young.

UNMICROFILMED: Biographical accounts and a certificate of marriage between Wortman and his first wife Aimée Kempe (1913); letters to Wortman (1911-1958) and to his second wife Hilda (1958-1980), some illustrated, from his mother, his brother Elbert, newspaper publishers, and colleagues including Peggy Bacon, Roy Baker, George G. Barnard, Gifford Beal, Ruth Benedict, Isabel Bishop, Charlton Bolles, Arthur Brown, E. Button, Stuart Campbell, Edward C. Caswell, Thomas Cole, Nathaniel Collier, Worth Colwell, Fred Cooper, Raymond M. Crosby, Benjamin Dale, Bob Davis, John Dawson, Ed De Cossey, Steven Dohanos, Max and Eliena Eastman, Pat Enright, W. D. Faulkner, Robert Fawcett, Max Fleischer, Juliana Force, Lora B. Fox, Fred Freeman, James Freeman, Alfred Frueh, Murray Harris, Jim Herbert, R. John Holmgren, Ellison Hoover, Will B. Johnstone, H. J. Kauffer, J. Graham Kaye, Clarence B. Kelland,Walter Klett, Gene Lockhart, Arthur Mann, Frank J. Marshall, Jim McKenna,Helen Miller, Gladys Mock, Feg Murray, Frank Netter, William Oberhardt, Lloyd Parsons, Audrey Parsons, Garrett and Florence Price, Raymond Prohaska, George Raab, Samuel Raab, Jack Ratcliff, Norman Rothschild, Harry Salpeter, Albert Sterner,
Jack Van Ryder, Leroy Ward, Mahonri Young, Carl Zigrosser, William Zorach, and Thomas Benton's wife Rita; legal material, including contracts with newspapers and publishers (1925-1938), client lists (1935-1954), and a lease (1924); financial records, including check stubs (1921-1922), an expense book (1923), and receipts (1923-1952); notes and writings, including membership lists for the Dexter Fellows Tent Circus Saints and Sinners Club of America and the Artists and Writers Golf Association; word puzzles and mathematical formulae; scripts "I Know What I Like" by Arthur William Brown and Phil Broughton and "Taxi,-Lady?" by William and Vivian Place, a notebook (1927), and a diary (1918) of Aimée Kempe Wortman; interviews, including a transcript of Wortman, Charles I. Stewart, and Johanna Harris discussing "Art Under a Democracy," and an untranscribed interview of Wortman conducted by Thomas Craven, ca. 1952; and art work, including 25 drawings and a a print by Wortman (undated and 1919), and drawings by Francis Hackett and William Zorach.

Also included are clippings (1903-1978), exhibition catalogs (1935-1953), programs (1938-1951), and printed material concerning The Players (1938) and the Society of Illustrators (1901-1939); photographs (1887-1956) of Wortman, his family, and colleagues, including Harry Beckhoff, Alexander Brook, Clarence Brown, Glenn O. Coleman, Fred Cooper, Thomas Craven, Rudy Dirks, Steven Dohanos, Max and Eliena Eastman, Duncan Ferguson, Stefan Hirsch, Will B. Johnstone, Frank Kidder, Richard Lahey, Robert Laurent, Joseph Lilly, Esther Merrill, Wallace Morgan, Willard Mullin, Garrett and Florence Price, Otto Soglow, Marguerite Zorach, and Thomas Hart Benton, sports cartoonist Feg Murray (3) with film celebrities Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, and Jean Harlow, works of art, stage productions by members of the Society of American Illustrators and a gathering at the Grand Central Galleries of modern artists including Peggy Bacon, Dorothy Varian, Max Weber, and William Zorach.

Location of Originals: Reel 3014: Originals returned to the lender, Hilda R. Wortman, after microfilming.

Material on reel 3014 lent from microfilming by Hilda Wortman, Wortman's widow. She donated the unmicrofilmed material 1979-1983. Craven interview tape donated 1981 by Denys Wortman Jr.