March 8 - Japanamerica author at JICC

I met Christopher Wanamaker, DC Anime Club President (202 262 2083) at the Shojo Manga exhibit, and he's passed along this press release. I think I'll attend as the book's been getting good press.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan presents: Roland Kelts
Author of: Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US
Thursday March 8th, 2007, 6:30 pm

In the past two decades Japanese culture has become as omnipresent in America as the West is in Japan. Why does Japanese culture speak to Americans today? Roland Kelts is the half-Japanese American author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US. He will examine the relationship between America and Japan and the influence they have on each other’s pop culture.
Mr. Kelts is also an editor of the literary journal A Public Space and a lecturer at The University of Tokyo. His articles, essays, and fiction have been published in Playboy, The Village Voice, Zoetrope: All-Story, Newsday, DoubleTake, Cosmopolitan, The Japan Times, Vogue Japan, Gunzo and Red Herring, among others. His essays on Japan appear in two recently published collections, Gamers and Kuhaku. He was the recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship in Writing and a winner of the Playboy Fiction Contest. He was a story consultant on the BBC's six-part series Japanorama, and he has just completed his first novel, Access, which will be published next year. He has lectured at New York University, Rutgers University, the Saint Ann's School and Philips Exeter Academy. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oberlin
College, and currently splits his time between New York and Tokyo.

Japan Information and Culture Center Auditorium
Reservations are required for this event: jiccrsvpwinter07@embjapan.org
Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan
Lafayette Center III 1155 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
Farragut North and West Metro
202-238-6949
www.embjapan.org/jicc

March 28 - Stagger Lee signing at Big Planet

Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix, writer and artist of the new comic Stagger Lee will be at Big Planet Comics in Bethesda from 2-4 pm on Wednesday, March 28th. As the flyer says, wear a Stetson, get a gift. I have no idea what that means.

Big Planet is at 4908 Fairmont Ave, in the Woodmont Triangle, and the phone number is 301-654-6856.

On April 11th, Bryan Talbot will be there in the evening for his new book Alice in Sunderland. Anyone who's unfamiliar with Bryan's work should run out and buy Tale of One Bad Rat, his Beatrix Potter-influenced story, and then work up to the glorious new wave madness of Luther Arkwright.

Rob Ullman covers Washington City Paper

'Savage Love' cartoonist Rob Ullman also illustrates the cover and main article of the new City Paper.

Robert Graysmith Was a Cartoonist Until the Zodiac Case Drew Him In

I haven't read this yet - "A Killer Obsession: Robert Graysmith Was a Cartoonist Until the Zodiac Case Drew Him In" by William Booth, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, March 1, 2007; Page C01.

Missed Molly Crabapple in person, and this interview too

Somehow I missed this article by Darona Williams - "Sexy Sketchy: Molly Crabapple," Express (February 26, 2007) and thus her appearance in DC, but read the interview anyway.

Here's another interview as well - "Someone's Sketchy" by Adrian f. Zettlemoyer, Broken Frontier (February 26, 2007).

March 3 - Tug of War exhibit

Glenn Dixon interviewed Annie Adjchavanich, curator of the exhibit Tug of War at the Hemphill Fine Arts gallery. The exhibit includes animators like Glen Barr (pictured above) who's worked on Ren & Stimpy and Gary Baseman, who's worked for Disney and may be most familiar as the artist for the game Cranium. The gallery is at 1515 14th St, NW. The exhibit opens on Saturday from 6:30-8:30, and there's a signing (of something - the article doesn't specify) on Sunday at 3-5 pm. It's open through April 7th and the phone number is 202-234-5601. The press release is here.

The article can be read at the Express website by clicking on 'download print edition' and selecting March 1, and then going to page E2, or the 'On the Spot' column.

Anybody want to meet at the booksigning?

March 15 & 22 - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind anime showing

I got this press release today - Miyazaki is great!! This is at 21st & M St, NW.

The Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan

Presents:

As part of the 15th annual Environmental Film Festival

March 15th and 22nd, 6:00 pm

In the JICC Auditorium

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: One thousand years after the “Seven Days of Fire,” an event that destroyed human civilization and most of the Earth’s original ecosystem, scattered human settlements survive. They are isolated from one another by the “Sea of Corruption,” a lethally toxic jungle of fungus swarming with giant insects that come together to wage war. Nausicaa is a charming young princess of the peacefull Valley of the Wind who is humane and peace-loving but also a skillful fighter noted for her empathy toward animals and humans. The Valley of the Wind becomes threatened when two rival states, Pejite and Tolmekia, battle to possess the “God Warrior,” a lethal giant bioweapon, that has landed in the Valley, and the fighting escalates out of control. The story holds a deeper meaning beyond war, however. Even the insects seem to be working toward some secret harmony and the lethal fungal forest seems to have a vital role in Earth’s new dominant ecosystem. As she helps prisoners, villagers, enemies and mutant insects, Princess Nausicaa becomes a Joan of Arc figure- a warrior maiden inspired by a vision to defend all life against destruction. Directed, written and illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki. Produced by Rick Dempsey and Isao Takahata. Original release, Japan 1984. 116 minutes In English Reccomended for children 10 years and older. Supported by the DC Anime Club.

The film will be introduced by Mr. Tom Vick, Tom Vick is the film programmer for the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution. His book, ASIAN CINEMA: A FIELD GUIDE will be published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2008.

Interview with Bernie Wrightson 3 (and last)

...continued from part 1 and part 2 and courtesy of Joel Pollack.

JP: What do you think of Bill Sienkiewicz?

BW: Bill runs hot and cold. I either really like his stuff, or it goes right by me. He does some things that make me very, very jealous. I wish that I could take some of those chances; I’m from an entirely different school of art. When you take chances like that, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Even when it doesn’t work, when he falls flat, I still have to admire him for taking the chance.

JP: He’s surpassed Neal Adams.

BW: Oh, god yeah. Neal really doesn’t have any surprises left. For me, Neal poured everything into the Superman – Muhammed Ali book. That is just one of my all-time favorite comics. Sometimes when I’m feeling really low and depressed, and it’s wintertime and the snow is up to the windowsills, I’ll pull that thing off the shelf and read it; it always brings me up again.

JP: This sounds like “true confessions.”

BW: Oh yeah, I love it, it’s really wonderful. Good storytelling, good drawing. Neal really poured his heart and soul into it, more than anything else he ever did. I think that Neal was a commercial artist, first, last, and always; and sort of dabbled in comics. He’s been more of an influence on comics in the 1980’s than anyone else.

JP: Of course, your work has been a strong influence in the eighties.

BW: Not nearly as much as Neal’s, and nothing like Jack Kirby. We’re talking about the giants of the industry. These are the guys who influenced the people who do the real bread-and-butter comic book stuff, which is, of course, the super heroes. Outside of these couple of graphic novels, I don’t do super heroes. The Spider-Man graphic novel is less of a Spider-Man story than it is a Berni Wrightson monster story with Spider-Man in it.

JP: Would you like to work with Alan Moore or Frank Miller?

BW: I’d like to work with Alan Moore. In fact, I’ve been toying with the idea of approaching DC Comics with a Swamp Thing graphic novel. If I could work with Alan Moore, and have total control over how it looks…

JP: Have you met Alan Moore?

BW: I only know him through his work, and this marvelously flattering thing he wrote for the third Swamp Thing reprint. It’s almost embarrassing for me, it’s so flattering. I felt so good when I read it. I’d really like to work with him. I don’t think there’s anyone in the field writing horror, who’s ever written horror, as well as Alan Moore. His stuff is genuinely creepy. I’ve gotten shivers from a number of his things that I’ve read. I can’t say that about anyone else.

JP: Any comments on DC or Marvel as publishers?

BW: DC and I had a falling-out for a while; it was more of a misunderstanding on everyone’s part. I’ll work for them again. I’d like to work with Julius Schwartz. Marvel is also a good publisher. They tend to want a little more control over their people. I’ve always been outside of that, because I’ve never been a mainstream artist for either company.

JP: Comments on Warren Publishing?

BW: I really admired Jim Warren. I walked into his office and said, “I want to work for you.” And he said, “Here’s my conditions: You work for me and I’ll give you back your originals. I own the printing rights, I’ll always own the printing rights, now and forever. You don’t have a thing to say about what happens to the printing rights. Forget about the rights, you don’t have any rights. On top of that, I’m going to pay you the best money you’ve ever made.” And it was true. He was paying me over $100 a page, which I wasn’t getting from any of the other companies. The money was there when I delivered the work. Maybe the best thing was I didn’t have to worry how the work was going to look when it was printed. They did it in black and white, and the printing was always good. Jim Warren was always fair to me. I wish the man well.

JP: How about Chris Zavisa (Land of Enchantment)?

BW: Never a problem with Chris. I think Chris is gearing up to getting out of the publishing business.

JP: I had heard that his last book (Twilight Eyes) was quite successful.

BW: I thought that it was great. It was very well written. The fellow who illustrated it is just marvelous. He’s still young and he could work a bit more; it’s fundamentally all there. He did some things that I was jealous of in that. The packaging was just beautiful; Chris is essentially a packager. He could take anyone’s work and make it look good. He’s a real stickler about reproduction.

JP: Is Berni Wrightson mellowing?

BW: Sure. Sure I am. I’ve got a beautiful home in the country, I’ve got two cars , got a dog, got a little boy, got a mortgage, I’ve got medical insurance, life insurance…

JP: Sounds like there are still a few more horror stories left in there.

BW: Yeah, I think so.

JP: A Wrightson anthology?

BW: I talk about it from time to time. I’d rather put the energy into one long, sustained story. This anthology stuff – too often you’ve got one really good story, and then several weak stories to fill it out. I think I’d rather work on one long, epic opus. I’ve already got 1 ½ graphic novels under my belt; the second one is coming along much more smoothly than the first one.

JP: And yet, you’re putting more work in.

BW: Exactly. I think the graphic novel is my medium in the comic book business. I’m certainly got going to do the newsstand books again. The reproduction is too iffy, and it’s a little too ephemeral – a throwaway thing. Graphic novels are nice. The reproduction is good. I can color the originals, which I really like. You can stretch that as far as you want; you can take it to a full-scale painting if you want to. The best thing about it is, it has an almost indefinite shelf life. If there’s a demand, it’s reprinted. On a second printing, my percentage goes up. (On Hooky) I heard the advance orders are 60,000. The Death of Captain Marvel is still their champ. That did so incredibly well in the first year, that Starlin couldn’t even believe it. He was rolling in money.

JP: Yet he’s not working for Marvel anymore.

BW: He had a lot of problems with Marvel. There’s something strange going on at Marvel. They’re losing their best people. They’ve lost Starlin, they’ve lost John Byrne, they’ve lost Frank Miller.

JP: What does that leave for Marvel?

BW: It leaves the New Universe (Loud laughter)

JP: Tell us about your future projects.

BW: This is the first time in recent memory that I haven’t had anything looming on the horizon.

JP: Because of your commitment on the Thing-Hulk graphic novel?

BW: Right. Part of the problem I had with the Spider-Man graphic novel was a lot of other things kept getting in the way. I had to finish Cycle of the Werewolf; I stopped for a couple of months and work on Ghostbusters; I did some of The Stand drawings; I kept breaking away from the graphic novel. With the Thing-Hulk graphic novel, I haven’t had to do that. One thing that has come along – I’ve met three guys that are special effects makeup people. I’ve done some storyboards with these guys for a movie called My Demon Lover, a horror comedy. It’s a low-budget thing. They want good demons and monsters for practically no money, and we’re trying to come up with that.

JP: So movies are in your future?

BW: I hope so, yeah. It would be fun.

JP: You’re not going “Hollywood” on us?

BW: I wouldn’t go to Hollywood. I’ve never been there, but everybody I’ve ever known who’s been there has just kind of gone and never been seen again. We lived in Florida for a year; it got very depressing. There’s no change of season – everything is constant. I just kept thinking California is probably like this, this changelessness. I really couldn’t take it. I like having a really stinking hot summer, followed by a beautiful fall, and then, an extremely hard winter. I enjoy that. It’s kind of purging.

JP: Any other new projects?

BW: This is really amazing. I didn’t think about it until you mentioned it, but there’s just nothing in the works. I’m sure in the next three months, I’m going to be scrambling for something.

JP: Thank you, very much, Berni, for the interview.

BW: Just in time (for Cheers).

And there it ends, almost 21 years later.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 2

continued from part 1

JP: Why haven’t you continued to do the covers for The Roots of the Swamp Thing Series?

BW: Initially, because they wouldn’t let me do paintings, and how many times can you deal with those same situations, and make them different and interesting. It’s leftovers, and I really would rather not deal with leftovers.

JP: Yet on your cover for TROTST #1, you went well beyond anything you had done before.

BW: Yeah, I had fun, because they were letting me do something different. I could play with it and experiment; jump in and do something that didn’t have a black line around it and lots of fancy feathering. I could just use a big brush and have fun and play with color. Everything is a learning process. If you don’t learn, you don’t grow.

JP: You start repeating yourself.

BW: Which I’ve been doing a lot of in the last few years, I’d be the first to admit.

JP: There’s a balance between art and commerce.

BW: Yeah, well, I take things on for the money, because I do this for a living.

JP: You’ve been known to get over-committed before.

BW: Oh yeah. I try to help people out sometimes. Like Creepshow was more of a favor to Stephen King.

JP: It must have been a nice shot in the arm for your career?

BW: Not really. It was certainly not my best work. I think it was several cuts below. I really can’t bear to look at it any more. There were a lot of restrictions; we didn’t have a lot of time.

JP: Have you seen Chaykin’s Shadow?

BW: Very briefly – I’ve only seen one issue. I thought it was pretty entertaining, but it wasn’t the Shadow. I’m not as into it as Kaluta, or the real hardcore fans. I’m sort of indifferent, but still, Chaykin’s thing wasn’t the Shadow. I don’t think the character can be updated.



JP: How about Miller’s Dark Knight?

BW: I saw the second issue, the one with the wrinkled Batman on the cover. I enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. That was Batman. Batman with teeth. That’s a little bit more like what the character should be. I always thought that Batman fought all of these weird psychos, the Joker, the Penguin, and Batman himself is a psycho. Nobody’s ever really explored that in any depth, and Miller’s got a handle on that.

JP: What do you think of Moonshadow?

BW: Moonshadow I find pretty enjoyable. It tends to ramble a lot; it doesn’t hold my interest a whole lot. Maybe I prefer something with a little more punch. You either like fairy tales or you don’t, and I suppose I don’t. Can’t fault Jay’s art. Even in some of the stuff where he’s obviously rushed, he still pulls it off. He still has that assurance to bring it over.
JP: Kaluta and Lee’s Starstruck?

BW: I find it really fun to look at, as all of Michael’s stuff is; I find it difficult to read. Reading it is fun, and it is well written, but I don’t really think I understand it. I know a bit more than the guy on the street because I know Michael and Elaine, and we talk about it. I’ve seen the play. But even with that background, a lot of it is completely lost on me. I get the feeling, sometimes, that Michael doesn’t understand it. Anything that Michael works on is just wonderful.

to be continued in part 3

Images courtesy of the the Grand Comic Book Database.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 1

Well, I got slightly over a page of this typed in, and it was at a good stopping point, so here's the start of the interview courtesy of Joel.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson
Originally published in CFA-APA #5 (June 30, 1986)

BERNI WRIGHTSON INTERVIEW conducted by Joel Pollack on May 15, 1986.

JP: Do you have a distaste for barbarian subject matter?

BW: No, the real early stuff I did before ever being published was exclusively barbarian and horror. I did a lot of drawings of these big powerful guys with scars all over them. I did some samples for Conan when Marvel was going to do it, but they already had Barry Smith.

JP: They wanted a more gentlemanly Conan?

BW: I guess. Or someone they could push around more. Barry’ll love that. I might take another swing at it sometime.

JP: After Frazetta did the Conan covers, there’s not a lot left to say about it.

BW: There doesn’t seem to be any need for it. He was at his peak. I don’t think he ever got much better than that.


JP: What was the print run on A Look Back?

BW: I couldn’t really tell you. It turned into such a headache. Poor Chris (Zavisa) went through sheer hell. I just tuned it all out when it was happening. All I know is – it’s out of print; you can’t get it; there won’t be another printing.

JP: Any possibility of an abridged version?

BW: I have absolutely no plans. I really couldn’t be less interested. Please tell the fans I’m sorry, but I’d rather get on with the next project. If somebody came to me and wanted to take the project on and do all the legwork and worry about the reproduction and all of that, and just give me a pot of money, that would be fine. I’m not going to strain myself over that.

JP: What of your work showed up in Ghostbusters?

BW: I worked on the Wardogs and it’s hard to tell anymore. It looks like they kept my proportions for the dogs, and not much else. They originally came to me with drawings that other people had done and the dogs looked very much the way they looked in the movie. They said, “We don’t want this reptilian look, we want something that looks a little more like a dog. Put some fur on it and make it more wolf-like.” So, I worked on that, did a lot of drawings, and when the movie comes out they just changed it back to what they told me they didn’t want in the first place. Something of mind did come through: the faces, the facial expressions, mostly the proportions; high in the shoulders, low in the back. I also worked on the librarian sequence; I did a long sequence of her changing. She went through this long change; the way I saw it, it was to have lasted four seconds. They didn’t do it mostly because they didn’t have the budget for it. Ghostbusters was not really a big budget movie in the effects line. They were trying to save money in this. The only thing that survived is when she hushes the guide. That was in my storyboards.

JP: How many finished Frankenstein drawings did you do?

BW: The original idea was to do a hundred. I did somewhere between forty and a hundred; I’d put it about sixty. There are quite a few out there that are unfinished; a lot of those are versions of ones that did get finished. I really made myself crazy on that stuff.

...to be continued in part 2
and part 3.

Coming soon! Berni Wrightson interview from 1986

Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics loaned me his copy of the fanzine/APA CFA-APA #5 (June 30, 1986) which contained his "An Interview with Berni Wrightson." CFA-APA was limited to 50 copies per issue so not many people have seen this interview. Today he gave me permission ... NAY! encouraged me to transcribe it and post it here. So check back in a few days and hopefully I'll have it up.

Yesterday's Spider-Man comic was the last

Bill Radford of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that the Spider-Man comic that we were getting in the Examiner has finished:

"...a lack of advertising dollars has caused the company to cut Spider-Man adventures short. The last issue appears today... “We received untold numbers of e-mails from enthusiastic readers and were thrilled by the great response from the papers that carried it,” Laura Richards, a spokeswoman for News America Marketing, said via e-mail.

“Unfortunately, despite our most conscientious efforts to get advertisers as excited as we were, in the end we were simply unable to bring in the revenue needed to offset the cost.”

So no more wandering the neighborhood and raiding the neighbor's lawns on Saturday for me.

Former Library of Congress curator Harry Katz interviewed

The San Diego Union-Tribune ran an interview with Harry Katz who worked on the Cartoon America companion book to the Library's exhibit.

Oscar-nominated animated shorts showing in DC

My friend Doug called this morning to let me know that this year's 2006 Oscar-Nominated Shorts are showing in DC this weekend at the E Street Landmark Theatre. Christian Toto reviewed them for the Times. Also in the Times, Zadzooks visits the NY Toy Fair.

Last free Spider-Man comic?

After a long search, I found today's Examiner to get what appears to be the last Spider-Man Collectible Series #24. There's a new, unsigned cover, and you can buy the complete set by downloading a mail-in form at http://www.smartsource.com.

Today's papers - Ghost Rider, Superman Returns videogame and Clifford Berryman

"Riding Solo" in the Washington City Paper (February 23, 2007) by Tricia Olszewski is a positive review of Ghost Rider by a woman, which surprises me somewhat for no good reason at all.

John Gaudiosi reviews the videogame for Superman Returns in "Superman's Kryptonite," Washington Post (February 23, 2007); WE44 and doesn't like it very much.

And the above drawing of Roosevelt as Shakespeare by Clifford Berryman will be in the "Shakespeare in American Life" exhibit opening March 8th at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is one of the great places in Washington.

See a slice of my collection

Al Rio will send you a postcard of his art for free, but asks you to send back a picture of you with the postcard. Since a.) I love comics ephemera, b.) collect cartoon philately and c.) don't consider myself particularly photogenic, I took this shot of the card with a slice of my collection that they've put up on their website.

I've got 2 postcards from ASIFA-Hollywood Animation's Archive project for the person who can name the most items in the picture. Both are caricatures of animators - Grim Natwick and Ub Iwerks.

China? Shojo manga? Shazam!

China Mieville at Politics & Prose bookstore, February 20, 2007


Scott Rosenberg, following up an interesting but off-topic interview with SF/fantasy writer China Mieville.... well he did put a comic he wrote and Liam Sharp illustrated in his last collection so we'll let him in... interviewed Jeff Smith for an article in today's Express. I haven't read the first issue of the comic yet - I'm waiting for the trade as the kids today say.

And in tomorrow's Post (you'll just have to wonder), Michael O'Sullivan has a review of the shojo manga exhibit. I met him at a New Year's Party (namedropping!), introducing myself because he was talking about the excellent Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit that was at the Hirschhorn Museum last year with another one across the street at the Sackler following close behind it. In tomorrow's review, I think he has this exactly right: Still, one of artist Masako Watanabe's drawings on view, from a comic created for readers (if that's the right word) in their 20s and 30s, features a graphic sex scene more reminiscent of shunga, the erotic variety of ukiyo-e, or traditional woodblock prints. Another image, from "Chumoncho," a comic by the same artist, depicts a murder-suicide by a lovesick courtesan. With its delicate spray of bright red blood frozen in midair, it's among the exhibition's most striking pictures.

These are by far the most striking images, and even though the both sex scene and the violence are quite explicit, they are mounted in the building's lobby where anyone can see them at any time. Go see the show before it closes to see what he meant.

Shojo Manga exhibit reviewed on web

Johanna Carlson's site Comics Worth Reading just ran a guest review by Ed Sizemore of the exhibit which is still here in DC for a few more weeks.

Today's Express, too late for usefulness

Today's Express had a wire article from the LA Times on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and a interview of China Mieville by comics fan (and ex-Examiner columnist) Scott Rosenburg. Mieville appeared tonight at Politics & Prose, and gave a fun talk about his new young adult novel Un Lun Dun. Tying him to comics, he did a strip with Liam Sharp in a collection of short stories.

The two newspaper bits should be available on their website.

Also, Flushed Away, last year's best animated film (Cars? get real - it was completely predictable) from Aardman Animation came out on DVD today. Best Buy is giving away plush singing slugs with their dvd. Can life get any better?