Good review of Finder: Voice at TCJ.com

Finder: Voice
Carla Speed McNeil
Dark Horse
$19.99, 208 pages

REVIEWED BY Shaenon Garrity Mar 29, 2011
http://www.tcj.com/reviews/finder-voice/

I love Carla Speed McNeil's Finder, and I imagine the reason I love it is the same reason it doesn't get more attention in the comics press: it's simultaneously straightforward and labyrinthine, genre-based and uncategorizable. It's solid sci-fi of the kind they were making in the 1970s...

Adam Dwight fine art animation at Flashpoint Gallery

Today's Express has a picture from the animated "Rocket Fuel" on page 5. Here's the information from Flashpoint's website.   Adam Dwight & Dana Jeri Maier: Off in a Corner April 1 – May 7, 2011 Opening Reception: Friday, April 1, 6 – 8 p.m. Art + Coffee Program: Sunday, April 10, 1:30 p.m. — Presented in collaboration with the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Luce Foundation Center Art + Coffee Program [meet at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in the F Street Lobby] Pink Panel @ Flashpoint: Drink + Draw, Thursday, April 21, 6:30 p.m. Adam Dwight's gouache paintings and rubber puddle will collide with Dana Jeri Maier's ink drawings on drink coasters for Off in a Corner, a two-person show that manipulates the line between fine art and illustration. When juxtaposed, Dwight's and Maier's farcical and cartoonish narratives reveal a dark absurdity to the characters and relationships depicted within. Exhibition Press Release [PDF, 348 KB]
Gallery Hours	Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 6 p.m. OR BY APPOINTMENT
Contact	Karyn Miller, Manager, Visual Art t 202.315.1310 f 202.315.1303

Truitt on Who Is Jake Ellis?

We spy a 'Jake Ellis' extension
By Brian Truitt, USA TODAY March 30 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2011-03-30-JakeEllis_N.htm

Troy Allen of Bamn has a Podcast

From: Troy Allen
Introducing The Menagerie of Kick-Assery Podcast

No new Bamn updates this week (although we have a deadline of April 6th to complete the bubbling on #3), but I neglected to mention earlier that I recently started a podcast called Menagerie of Kick-Assery.

M.O.K.A. (as it is affectionately called by nobody) is centrally focused on all things "geek." That includes comics, movies, TV shows, and, yep...wrestling.

We are nine episodes in and the ninth episode just went online today.

This episodes we talk to my good friend and wrestling manager Marcus "King Kong" Dowling.

Marcus was there for my fall from grace from professional wrasslin' (it was a short fall) and he gives us tons of industry insight.

Download it, stream it, or Itunes it at the Menagerie of Kick-Assery blog (you might learn something...but no promises):

CLICK HERE to listen to me, co-host Gene Green, and Marcus at the MOKA blog.

April 10: Capicons next convention

Capicons Comic Book and Pop Culture Con
Sunday, April 10 · 10:00am - 3:00pm
________________________________
Location
Dunn Loring Volunteer Fire And Rescue Department
2148 Gallows Road
Dunn Loring, VA
________________________________
More Info
Special Guest: Rafer Roberts--creator of Plastic Farm, and editor of D.C. Conspiracy's Magic Bullet! More TBA!

Admission $3 - Kids FREE!

Open to the public from 10 am - 3 pm. Buy, sell & trade: Gold, Silver, Bronze Age comics; Indie & Modern comics, Publishers & Creators, TV & Movie Collectibles. Non-sport cards; Videos & DVDs; Horror/Sci-Fi; figures, toys; Star Wars & Star Trek memorabilia; original artwork, posters and other comic-related collectibles.

Wheatley / Hempel comic book funded for movie adaptation

Mark Wheatley tells me that his comic book, Blood of the Innocent about Dracula versus Jack the Ripper, has moved along in the movie development process and sends this link for more details.
Mark will be the next Meet a Local Cartoonist at the City Paper site.

Comicsgirl reports on "Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush/Trickster event at Busboys & Poets • 03.30.11"

Comicsgirl has written up last night's "Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush/Trickster event at Busboys & Poets • 03.30.11".  I was quite taken with Christopher Cardinale's talk about how he visited Mexico and photographed the scenes that the author had described in his short story.

Editor Matt Dembicki also pointed out this blog post on Trickster that talks about how Peter Kuper did the initial cover for the book

Comic Riffs interviews Tom Tomorrow

REBEL WITH A 'KOS': Tom Tomorrow ends Salon run to become 'comics curator' at the Daily Kos
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog March 30 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/rebel-with-a-kos-tom-tomorrow-ends-salon-run-to-become-comics-curator-at-the-daily-kos/2011/03/30/AFEaTl3B_blog.html

April 1: Nick Galifianakis at National Press Club

Nick Galifianakis will be at the National Press Club hosting Commedia dell Media, a contest to select Washington's funniest journalist. The event is a fundraiser for three causes.

Atlas Returns in Baltimore

It’s easy to forget how close Baltimore really is, but it is less than an hour away and has one of America’s few comics museums. Geppi’s Entertainment Museum (aka GEM), housed in a former railroad station right outside the Camden Yards ballpark, is a magical place for comics fans. Steve Geppi is the owner of Diamond Distributors, the largest comic book distributor in the country, and his museum is a showcase for his collections. The main hallway is filled with large posters (including one for the original King Kong movie), original comics artwork, advertising signs, and a letter from Walt Disney to Mrs. George ‘Krazy Kat’ Herriman expressing condolences on her husband’s death.

The exhibit galleries tell the story of popular culture via characters, beginning in the 19^th century with Palmer Cox’s Brownies (although there’s a nod to earlier history in the first one – you can see Ben Franklin’s original newspaper cartoon in it). They jump decade by decade, hitting highlights such as The Yellow Kid, Superman, Disney’s characters, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye and the like before ending with Star Wars in the 1970s. Each room is packed with toys and merchandising.

The galleries begin with one devoted to the history of the comic book which begins with early collections of comic strips from the 1900s through the ‘20s, then moves into pulps and a whole wall of Big Little Books, before showcasing Geppi’s collection of key comic books. Atlas At Last! the current temporary exhibit began in this room. Atlas was a company that barely existed from 1974-1975. It was created by Martin Goodman, the former owner of Marvel Comics (which had used the name Atlas in the 1950s), for his son Chip to run, in an attempt to outstrip his former company. As Diamond’s Scoop site notes, “By paying top rates, the company attracted creators such as Russ Heath, John Severin, Alex Toth, Walter Simonson, Ernie Colon, Neal Adams, Pat Broderick, Mike Ploog, Rich Buckler, Frank Thorne, Tony Isabella, Jeff Jones, Boris Valejo and others. One series, The Destructor, featured longtime Warren, Marvel and DC editor Archie Goodwin as its writer, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange co-creator Steve Ditko on pencils, EC veteran and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents creator Wally Wood on inks, with Marvel veteran Larry Lieber (one of the Atlas editors and Marvel impresario Stan Lee’s brother) providing the cover.” It’s worth noting that talents did not move between the major companies at the time, and one could be blackballed for doing work for a competitor.


Mark Huesman, JC Vaughn, Mike Wilbur, Philip Zolli & Mark Wheatley

The exhibit features most, if not all, of the comics, that Atlas published and some striking original art down for the books. These are drawn from the collection of Philip Zolli, the enthusiast behind The Atlas Archives website (which he started in 2003). Zolli bought the comics he could fine when they appeared originally, and has continued completing and filling out his collection over the intervening thirty-five years. Mike Wilbur (employee of Diamond International Galleries) was one of the show’s curators and provided some of the comic books on display. The other of exhibit’s two curators, J.C. Vaughn (of Gemstone Publishing), invited me to the opening of the show. Of Atlas’ enduring appeal, he told me, “I’ve worked in comics for sixteen years next month, and I freelanced for a year before that, so I’m not a novice, I’m not your average fanboy, but I was totally a geeked-out kid. I got two of the comics in a trade when I was a kid, like 1976, a year after they died, and I got so into them -- that’s the seed of the exhibit being here now.”

The Atlas line has just been relaunched by Ardden Entertainment and grandson Jason Goodman, and Vaughn says, “I think there’s a better understanding of the company now … we’re talking 72, 73 publications in 1975, and the fact that we’re still talking about them in any sense is amazing, and the fact that anyone’s bringing them back is even more amazing.”

Phil Zolli was attempting to collect his comics before there were comic book stores. “I remember there several stationary stores had the spinner racks, and they were there, and Atlas in my area got good coverage, so I was able to buy them right off the newsstand. They just struck a chord with me because all I knew at the time was Marvel and DC, and I got to be at the ground floor of a brand-new company. It was very exciting. A year later, they disappeared.” He didn’t buy all of the line at the time – Archie knock-off Binky, Gothic Romances and other magazines waited for later, as did buying original art. “Once I started the site, and I had searches out because I wanted to accumulate as much information as I could, E-bay was a great source of information and artwork that popped up. I thought, ‘This is great and relatively inexpensive. I’m going to buy it.’ Zolli’s original artwork is interspersed with other artwork, both in the main comic book exhibit room and the museum’s main hall, a weakness in the show’s design that lessens the impact of the art. Very little of the original art exists. Vaughn noted, “When people went up to the Atlas offices, after they ceased publication, there was one secretary that denied that they were ever in comics, Simonson had a whole story missing… some have cast glances at some of the last editorial employees and others have just heard that it got thrown out.” Maryland comic artist Mark Wheatley, who noted that he published the first or second story done by Howard Chaykin, said “During that period, it’s quite likely it just got tossed.” Zolli is continuing to collect the new versions of the comics, and has been buying original art from those series as well.

The second Atlas failed for a couple of reasons. Vaughn points out, “They hired Jeff Rovin from Warren [a black and white comics magazine publisher] and put him in charge of color comics; they brought in Larry Lieber who worked at the core of silver age Marvel, and put him in charge of black and white magazines…” Wheatley said of Atlas, “They looked like Marvel deliberately, and then the distributors forced them to change and not look like Marvel” while Vaughn says that “a lot of the changes were capricious like the Movie Monsters [magazine on display] originally had differently colored lettering that didn’t get lost in the background orange, but the Goodman’s came by and made them change it.” Discussing how much the comics industry has changed, Zolli says “Larry Hama was doing the second issue of Wulf, and his mother was dying, and Martin Goodman refused to push the deadline back. The guy quit right after that. A lot of people were bitter.” Distribution was a problem for the company, as other companies such as Skywald and Charlton were still fighting for space on the racks. Wilbur remembers, “The place I was buying my new comics in the ‘70s was a bookstore / newsstand place. I went in there often enough that they would let me put out the new comics when they came in. They had no say in what they got – they would just get these bundles of comics strapped together and it was just totally random. Maybe this month you might get ten copies of this title, next month you’d get two copies and the next month you’d get twenty of them.”



The failure of this newsstand distribution system is what led Geppi to begin Diamond, his distribution company – so he could get his own comic books to read. If you’re curious about a little company that didn’t matter much, or are interested in cartooning history, the museum is located at 301 W. Camden Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, 410-625-7060, sliding scale entry fee begins at $10 for adults.

[Corrected June 1, 2011 for the misspelling of Mr. Zolli's name as Zullo. I regret the error].

Magic Bullet 2 distribution begins

D.C. Conspiracy Has Better Luck Hawking Papers Than Radiohead

 by Jonathan L. Fischer on Mar. 30, 2011

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/books/2011/03/30/d-c-conspiracy-has-better-luck-hawking-papers-than-radiohead/ 

Comic Riffs on meta-Peanuts

The 'Riffs Interview: One fan's new '3eanuts' site takes stripped-down view of 'PEANUTS'
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog March 29 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/the-riffs-interview-one-fans-new-3eanuts-site-takes-stripped-down-view-of-peanuts/2011/03/28/AFr8AluB_blog.html

Truitt on new Thor cartoon

'Blood Brothers' shines new light on Loki
By Brian Truitt, USA TODAY March 28 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2011-03-28-BloodBrothers_N.htm

April 2: Anime at Cherry Blossom time in Freer Gallery

FESTIVAL NATIONAL CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL ANIME MARATHON* Saturday, April 2, 11 am|Freer, Meyer Auditorium   The Freer's ninth annual anime marathon is hosted by anime expert Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the US. It features a Miyazaki kids' classic, a cosplay contest, a Makoto Shinkai feature and sneak preview, and a tribute to the late Satoshi Kon, who visited the marathon in 2007.    This event is cosponsored by Otakorp, Inc., and copresented with the DC Anime Club.

PR: Watch America's Greatest Otaku in DC

Watch America's Greatest Otaku Episode 5 on Hulu! March 24, 2011    AGO EPISODE 5 WATCH IT ON HULU NOW!!!   A BIG shout out to Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York!!   (And of course, don't forget about our contests just for AGO Fans -- details at the bottom!) America's Greatest Otaku, a revealing eight-episode documentary series that searches the United States for the number one American otaku, heads to Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York!    Stu and the Otaku six are fueling up for another week!  Sully looks like he wants to finish his breakfast...     Who's Da Entertainer?  Home Made Kazoku! Let's keep in all in the Familia     But let's not forget the classics: here's Italy playing the flute!    With all this music going around, let's dance.   And we have special guest star M. Alice LeGrow, creator of Bizenghast!     With her, the awesome author brought along Bubbles!     Aww, Bubbles is so cute...      ... but ninja are scary!!    Hot spots in this episode includes Otakon, Geppi's Entertainment Museum, the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, Alice's Tea Cup, New York Ninja, and interviews with Dr. Natsu Onoda Power, Reni Mimura, and I-ChiP!       Be sure to tune in to Hulu every Thursday for new episodes of America's Greatest Otaku!     CONTEST DETAILS! Yay for another AGO contest! Watch EPISODE 5 NOW, and we'll post up how to enter the contest on the AGO website later today :)      To learn more about the show, as well see exclusive bonus content (such as extended interviews, clips, etc.), be sure to keep visiting americasgreatestotaku.com!                                    Get TPOP News Live! Follow Stu Levy on Twitter! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

NPR's Monkey See blog staff to read Sandman, and write technical report

Ok, so maybe they're not doing a technical report...

The 'I Will If You Will' Book Club: Neil Gaiman's 'The Sandman: Dream Country'

by Linda Holmes

 National Public Radio's Monkey See blog March 29, 2011

 http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/03/29/133372647/the-i-will-if-you-will-book-club-neil-gaimans-the-sandman-dream-country

2 local strips in Charlotte Observer comics poll

Both Barney & Clyde and Cul de Sac are in the running.  Good luck gentlemen.

 

Help us pick a new comic

Mar. 29, 2011

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/03/29/2180009/help-us-pick-a-new-comic.html

Tonight: Dueling comics events

On March 29 at Busboys and Poets (14th and V in Washington, D.C., 6:30-8:30) discussing 'Trickster' will be editor Matt Dembicki, contributing artists Michael Auger and Jacob Warrenfeltz, as well as Christopher Cardinale, illustrator of 'Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush,' who will be talking about that book.

Also on March 29, Ben Katchor is at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Here's their PR:

The Picture Stories of Ben Katchor
Tuesday, March 29
7 p.m.
Members $12; Public $15
Hailed by The New York Times as "the most poetic, deeply layered artist ever to draw a comic strip," Ben Katchor has collected both a cult and mainstream following for his wry, perceptive, and slightly surreal comic strips of urban life. The author of The Jew of New York and Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District, Katchor's work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Forward, and Metropolis. The first cartoonist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Ben Katchor discusses his first book in more than 10 years, The Cardboard Valise (Random House, 2011)- the whimsical graphic novel which follows the intertwined lives of three characters who travel to the fantastical nation of Outer Canthus. A book signing follows the talk.

Comic Riffs talks to Mike Peters

POLITICAL CARTOONS: Mike Peters reacts to winning National Headliner Award
By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Comic Riffs blog March 28 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/political-cartoons-mike-peters-wins-national-headliner-award/2011/03/28/AFJww3oB_blog.html

Leftist cartoonist Christopher Cardinale, in town and interviewed

Meet a Visiting Cartoonist: A Chat With Christopher Cardinale
 by Mike Rhode on Mar. 28, 2011
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/books/2011/03/28/meet-a-visiting-cartoonist-a-chat-with-christopher-cardinale/

 

He'll be appearing at Busboys and Poets on March 29th at 6:30 pm, at the 14th and V Store, with some of the people from the Trickster anthology of American Indian tales.