Sunday, October 29, 2017

The Graphic Novel panel at Fall For The Book transcribed

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Ben Towle
transcribed by Mike Rhode from “The Graphic Novel” panel at Fall for the Book, George Mason University, October 14, 2017

Bring the whole family for a celebration of comic books and graphic novels with artists S.L. Gallant, Paulina Ganucheau, Kevin Panetta, Jason Rodriquez, and Ben Towle. Gallant presents his artwork of a familiar hero figure as he is the longest running artist on G.I. Joe: An American Hero. Ganucheau and Panetta co-authored Zodiac Starforce, starring comic high school girls taking on the darkness of the earth. Rodriquez shares his graphic novel, Colonial Comics: New England, 1750-1775, and his revolutionary idea for exciting young adults to learn about the history of colonial New England. And Towle introduces readers to the coastal town of Blood's Haven, with an ocean full oysters and even oyster pirates in his graphic novel, Oyster War.

Ben Towle: We have four esteemed guest and I’m going to do a quick intro for them. They are more established in the industry than I will make it seem like, because I want to get right to some content here.


Shannon Gallant, who also goes by S.L., has penciled for all kinds of publishers like Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Titan. He is the long-running artist on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero which is currently published by IDW. He is from Washington.

Kevin Panetta, also from Washington, is the co-creator of Zodiac Starforce, published by Dark Horse. His first graphic novel, Bloom, is coming out from First Second.

Paulina Ganucheau, an artist and illustrator based in Maryland, is the co-creator with Kevin of Zodiac Starforce. She has done work for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Random House and more. 
Jason Rodriguez is a comics writer and editor who focuses on educational comics, social-justice anthologies, and historical works aimed at middle graders and young adults. He also teaches teens and adults how to make comics as a way to grasp difficult concepts.

My first question is the standard question you’ll hear at almost any comics panel, which is: How did you get into comics? With most of us, myself included, there’s usually one book or comic strip or a specific reading experience which makes a light bulb go off in your head and you say, “This is what I want to do. This is my thing.” I’ve asked these guests if they can tell us what that book or comic was for them. I’m going to start off with Shannon.


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Shannon Gallant: For me, as a kid in the early seventies, my parents for Christmas would always try to buy me something to get me interested in things.  One of the things they got me were the Power Record’s comic book combos. It was a comic book that came with a 45 rpm record. My dad being in the music industry meant everyone in the house had their own turntable, as you would. I used to play it for hours and the artwork … it was Batman and I just fell in love with it. The book itself was actually drawn by Neal Adams, who at the time was the biggest name in comics. I just assumed everything in the world was supposed to look like that, because that comic book was all I ever looked at. I just fell in love with his ability with figures, backgrounds, cars, everything… it seemed like everything looked like it should look. It had a realism that just sucked me into the story and I went through that thing so many times that the 45 ended up with a skip. Years later, I found an audio file that someone had made of it, and that skip wasn’t in it, and it was driving me nuts.  I kept waiting for the skip. [audience laughs]. That was my first experience and from that point on, I was the “kid who is going to draw comic books one day. After my NFL career ends, I’m going to draw comic books.”

Ben Towle: Did you have any experience with the pre-Adams goofier Batman?

Shannon Gallant: No, this was my first exposure. The only other thing I would say was around the same time was an oversize Superfriends thing that DC published, and I fell in love with the Alex Toth section in the back. It was only like seven pages, but there was something about his artwork. Again, it was realistic figures, or naturalistic would be a better term. People didn’t have oversize muscles and women weren’t drawn exaggeratedly.

Ben Towle: Are there anything in the pages from Adams’ book that you remember finding particularly striking or is something you look back to in your own work?
 
Shannon Gallant: The bottom panel [of Batman’s car leaving the Batcave] was one of my favorites as a kid, because my only other experience with Batman was the tv show and I always loved how the Batmobile would come out of the cave. So, I was like, “Oh, that’s how the cave works!” I loved the car and his ability in using perspective and shadow work like in the second panel where he hides Robin’s face in total shadow. That just amazed me. I was thinking, “Oh, there’s really light.” His anatomy was always spot on and everything about it was just dramatic and caught my eye. Of course, when you’re a kid and listening to the album, the thing just practically came alive. There weren’t panel separations; it literally was a movie in my head.

The dramatic punch scene where the Joker is foreshortened – that I’ve stolen I don’t know how many times. If you look through my work, you’ll see that.

Ben Towle: Yes, but I think he stole that from Jack Kirby. We all have a habit of stealing stuff.

Kevin Panetta: Jim Aparo stole from Adams…

Shannon Gallant: It’s kind of a standard, but that’s what I see when I draw those things.  This book is practically just a blueprint for everything I draw.


20171014_123114Ben Towle: Let’s move on to Paulina…

Paulina Ganucheau: When I was a kid, I was into videogames before comics, which is kind of surprising because of the funnies in the Sunday papers – kids always read them, but I didn’t really care about them. I’m super into Zelda and my brother had a subscription to Nintendo Power which serialized A Link to the Past comic by the master Shotaro Ishinomori. I was around five so I was very young, but this was the moment where I thought, “This is what I want to do. “ I remember drawing my own comics, and of course they were terrible, but there was something about Ishinomori’s simplicity of line and the movement and color, how succinctly he told his story, which I was very familiar with because it was based on a game. It was very accessible to me as a young child.

You can see the vibrancy of his work, juxtaposed with the simplicity of it. You can tell he is so effective at what he does, but you know this man can hit a deadline. He has a Guinness record for the most pages ever. Something in my mind said I want to do this, and I just kept doing it.

Ben Towle: I can’t imagine where you got your color palette from.

Paulina Ganucheau: I know, right? You can see it in my work. I was super into manga, and super into anime.

Ben Towle: It did occur to me when I saw your samples that most manga we see is black and white, and you were fortunate enough to stumble upon the rare example of manga that’s full color.
Paulina Ganucheau: And this is before I was even fully obsessed with manga ,because I was about eight years old when I first discovered manga… I think it was Sailor Moon, of course. Zelda was a precursor to that; I didn’t even know what it was, but I already knew that I loved it and this was what I wanted to do.
 

20171014_123111Ben Towle: Kevin?

Kevin Panetta: I started reading comics when I was very young. My mom would go to the grocery store, and I wasn’t very interested in groceries, so I would hang out in the comics section and just read everything for free, like people do in Barnes & Noble now. I would read Spider-Man and X-Men and everything like that, but in my mind, those things just existed. They came fully formed out into the world, and nobody made them, and people didn’t work on them. But then I started reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the creator’s names were above the title, and I became aware that Kevin Eastman writes it, and Peter Laird draws it. I thought, “Oh, that’s something I can do,” and I started following different artists. Because the Ninja Turtles comic was so weird, they had different artists who would draw everything so Jim Lawson was a little more realistic, and Mark Martin drew really cartoony things while Rick Veitch used a lot of blacks almost like a noir story. I became really aware of the different kind of stories you can tell in comics, all through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. From there, I moved to following creators more than characters. When I was a kid I would just read Batman or Spider-man, but then I realized, “I like this writer Peter Milligan, or Neil Gaiman, so I want to see what he’s doing,” so when I was around eleven I became obsessed with different creators. And I wanted to make comics.
Ben Towle: Is that the same Mark Martin who did Runaway for Fantagraphics?

Kevin Panetta: Yes, he did Gnat Rat and all these weird parody comics in the 80s. He did two issues of Ninja Turtles that were really weird and he drew a parody of them called Green-Grey Sponge-Suit Sushi Turtles, that I thought was funny when I was ten.


Ben Towle: And finally, Jason?

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Jason Rodriguez: Let me preface this by saying my parents are actually here. I have two different careers in comics. When I first started, I was editing horror, thriller, historical fiction books, and eventually I got to the point when I could start doing the books I wanted to do. If it was that career, I would have shown Groo. But I go back to these books as a kid – I was a big Charlie Brown fan as a kid. As an adult, Charlie Brown was a comic about depression, anxiety and bullying, and it was the perfect for a kid. But mainly, these hybrid comics that my parents would get for me came out once a month. They were Charlie Brown Encyclopedias. Basically, the way it worked, they went to a grocery store, and if you bought $10 worth of groceries for $.99 you get the next volume of the encyclopedia, and if you just wanted the encyclopedia, it was $1.99. They were this fantastic merger of actual non-fiction about science, the human body, and different cultures. There were 17 volumes total and the stories were paired with sequential art in comics form. When I tried to reinvent my career to get more into educational and social justice comics, and put complex ideas across to kids, I went back to these books basically and I really tried to use them as a model. I remember as a kid, my dad worked two jobs, and my mom worked, and I needed a lot of supplemental education. Part of that was Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, but part of it was these Charlie Brown encyclopedias which taught me a lot outside of school when I needed more. I really tried to revisit this model. It’s kind of a cheat answer, but it’s where I am looking back right now. I remember how much influence these books had on me, and I want to try to recreate some of that for kids.
Ben Towle: I want to point out the very first Peanuts that ran. When you think about Peanuts, you think about kid’s sleeping bags with Woodstock on them , but that is pretty much the tone of a lot of the actual Peanuts comic strips.

Jason Rodgriguez: Yes, I have it tattooed on me.


Ben Towle: In comics, almost all comics-making and the process of getting your work out, comes down to problem solving. Can you each give me one example of problem solving you had to do? What the problem was and how you got around it? By problem solving, I mean everything from actual drawing problems to logistical problems of getting your books out – basically anything that involved some creative thinking. We’ll go back to Shannon – you’ve got a specific drawing problem that you want to talk about?

Shannon Gallant: Larry Hama, who was the writer on G.I. Joe since it started at Marvel back in the 80s when I was a kid (although it took a hiatus for years), is still writing it. Larry has a habit of trying to do things for friends and make them happy. Apparently he had a friend in Ireland, and he set a scene in Dublin. It’s a ride around the streets of Dublin. Well, I’ve never been there and I don’t know what it looks like. In the old days before the internet, you had to have a morgue file [of pictures torn out of magazine and newspapers to see how something looked when you had to draw it]. I was growing up when we didn’t have the internet so I was building a morgue file. If that was the case now, I would have been screwed because I didn’t have any pictures in the morgue file of Ireland at all, but thankfully now there’s the internet. So what I wound up doing was getting on Google Maps and ‘driving’ myself through downtown Dublin. The restaurant where the truck is crashing in and the barrels are flying everywhere is based on an actual place. These are shots of traffic from Google. I basically planned it out. Larry had this big elaborate description of what was happening, but I just had them drive around in a circle. If you follow the Google Maps, you would just see a big square in the middle of the page, but that was how I solved the problem. I tend to overdue all of my research on things like this, especially for sets and detail work. I found all these shots, and then I only used two. I got around 500 reference photos off Google Maps and I think I ended up using five or something insane.

Ben Towle: Just the traffic scene and then crashing into the restaurant?

Shannon Gallant: Yeah. But it’s one of those things that sets into your head so you get a better sense of things. Whether I show the sets or not, it at least grounds the figures for me. I try to make sure the vehicles look right, because if you go to foreign cities, the cars are designed smaller for European or Japanese cities. They’re not these big Buicks that we drive in the States and I think stuff like that is important. It always drives me nuts when I’m looking at a comic that supposed to be set in a foreign country, and I think, “The guys wouldn’t be driving a Hummer through small Italian village streets.” That’s one of the problems that I constantly faced on G.I. Joe… just where things are set. Larry loved to pick random locations like Kabul, so I ended up doing a lot of research. Thankfully for me, the internet is available now, because I don’t know that a morgue file would have been enough to deal with Larry.


Kevin Panetta: Our biggest problem was finding a format for our comic. We had a lot of problems. When we started out, we were friends and we wanted to do a comic. We had this idea called Cadets that we were going to launch as a webcomic and publish it one page at a time on the internet. And as we kept working on it, it just kept getting more complicated, and we realized, “This is a lot of work and we’re not going to get any money,” because you do webcomics for free. We decided to simplify it and there was this anime tv show that people watched inside our Cadets story, and it was called Zodiac Starforce. So we thought, “We’ll make a webcomic of that. It’ll be much simpler.” We did five pages of that, and it was a lot of work. The whole back of our graphic novel is a history of all the stuff we went through. That was not working, because when you do a webcomic and you’re doing one page at a time, you want to put a cliffhanger at the end of every page and that affects the way you tell the story.

Paulina Ganucheau: The pacing didn’t work.
 
Kevin Panetta: Then we decided to try to do a simple black and white minicomic…

Paulina Ganucheau: … which is also in the book if you want it.

Kevin Panetta: In that format, we were trying to simplify things, and it made things look too cute. We wanted to tell kind of a serious story. Finally, we got contacted by a publisher who asked if we could do it as a longer story – around 90 pages. And that’s when we ended up with what we have now which is putting it out through Dark Horse. We found that we could tell the story we wanted to tell and take a little more time with it because 1: we were getting paid, which helps [Paulina: That helps. Really helps] and then 2: that length gave the story a lot of room to breathe. We finally settled in and felt like we were doing the story the way we were supposed to.

Paulina Ganucheau: It was a better situation for everybody involved… and for the characters… and the story.

Kevin Panetta: Now we’ve done one of those, and we’ve just started another one and the format has worked out really well for us.

Ben Towle: One thing I noticed, as it went through various formats, the character designs changed. I remember it online, and didn’t it run in print with something having to do with a comic store here in town?

Kevin Panetta: There’s a comic store called Big Planet Comics and our very first iteration was an ad in the back of Magic Bullet newspaper. It was like Scooby-Doo and they were solving crimes and were in a band…

Paulina Ganucheau: It’s in the graphic novel too. It was one-page like Jem and Scooby-Doo meet.

Ben Towle: They were in school in this one…

Kevin Panetta: Yeah, they were in school, but the stories now are more about the character relationships so the stories are set during winter break so we don’t have to put them in class.

Ben Towle: And then there was a minicomic? I missed that one entirely.

Paulina Ganucheau: Yeah.

Ben Towle: So why did you go with a more simplified concept?

Kevin Panetta: Because it was less work.

Paulina Ganucheau:  And we did it in a week.

Kevin Panetta: Before SPX – the Small Press Expo. If you’ve never been, it’s the best comics show.

Ben Towle: Absolutely, if you’re from this area and you’re not going to SPX, you’re missing out. It’s one of two or three of the best indy comics shows that you get. Independent creators, with their own books and not Marvel or DC, are hand-selling stuff, a lot of which they made themselves with silk-screening and stapling. It’s a really amazing show.

Paulina Ganucheau:  It was my very first convention and it opened my eyes so much.

Kevin Panetta: Paulina didn’t draw the cover of the collection though; we got lucky enough to get Marguerite Sauvage, a really amazing French artist. I don’t know why she drew that for us.

Paulina Ganucheau:  I don’t either. We tricked her.

Ben Towle: Jason, you had some very specific issues related to historical fiction?

Jason Rodriguez: I’m going to focus on my colonial history books. The purpose of these books is to include under-represented narratives from colonial history. When I first sat down with my publishers, I think they were taken aback a bit by how much I wanted to put into this. I had Pulitzer Prize winners of non-fiction writing stories, professors like Doctor Virginia DeJohn Anderson from University of Colorado Boulder… these were people writing comics for the first time and I was pairing them with illustrators. The problem is when you go out and talk to parents about it, and they assume it’s funny. It’s a comic book. Well, no, there’s real history here. That’s one of the main challenges. Another challenge is compressing all the stuff these historians give you into a comic story. I talked about Dr. Anderson. She wrote a 600-page book on free-range animal husbandry, which is one of the key things that started colonialists fights with the natives.  I wrote her, and she had no idea who I was, and asked, “Have you ever thought about adapting this 600-page tome that you wrote to a 5-page comic book made for kids?” She responded, “Who are you again?” So one of the things I begin to try to get around this problem is simplifying the work and using the visual representation of comics and language to show how it can work. One of the big issues between the colonists and the natives was language barriers, so instead of actual text, I use iconography so that we know the characters are talking about, but also can see that the other characters do not.
We did a story about the very first slaves that were brought over to New England on Maverick Island. There was this big language barrier where people didn’t understand what these individuals brought over from Africa were saying. We once again used iconography to show this big issue within slavery, where people couldn’t talk and communicate.

The other problem I talked about is when parents and educators say this is just a comic book. This is where I went back to the Charlie Brown Encyclopedia set and I tried to put in as much as possible that was supplemental and text-based. 
People seem to look at text and think it’s more real than comics. So for every story we did things like Spotlight On featuring subjects such as effigies or characters that we couldn’t do full stories for. The last part is showing our work. So for every book I’ve ever done, I always put the bibliography and notes in. For the very first volume of Colonial Comics, we had to go to primary sources and worked with archives, referenced ever story, did book guides and I think that was the way we got around the parent or teacher saying, “Comic books can’t be non-fiction.”
Ben Towle: Do we have any questions from the audience?

Audience member: On the continuum of the most-creative hand-lettered graphic novel and the standard comic book, is serialization the main difference between the graphic novel and the comic?

Kevin Panetta: It’s the length and then serialization as well. Our Zodiac Starforce book, people would call a graphic novel, but it contains the four comic books. Comic books will generally come out on a monthly schedule and be 20-30 pages while a graphic novel can be anywhere from 56-500 pages. I have a graphic novel coming out next year that’s 351 pages long; I apologized to my artist. It is romance, a coming of age story that takes place in a baker, and it’s actually drawn by Paulina’s sister who lives in Australia. We’ve been working inter-continentally and it has a lot of baking and recipes in it. It’s a really cute romance. I’m really excited about it.

Audience member: Have you personally tested all the recipes?

Kevin Panetta: I tried some of them and some of them turned out horribly, but I assume that the characters in the graphic novel are better at it than I am.

Audience member: If I was looking to make a graphic novel, or a comic series, is there any way for a writer to find an artist, or vice versa?

Paulina Ganucheau:  Social media.

Ben Towle: It’s worth pointing out that some cartoonists work completely on their own which is what I do, and some don’t and pretty much everyone here is working in combination with somebody else.

Paulina Ganucheau:  Again, I would say social media. Twitter has a great community of comics pros and is super-easy to communicate and connect with people, and grow with people. Some of my best friends I’ve met through Twitter and some of my biggest jobs have come through Twitter like my first connection with Marvel, or some of my IDW work, they’ve come from talking with some on Twitter. That’s all it takes. Be nice, be kind, and try to meet people.

Kevin Panetta: I do feel that when you’re starting out, it’s good to work with people on your level, who are also starting out. A lot of people will say, “I want Frank Miller to draw my comic that I wrote.”

Paulina Ganucheau:  It doesn’t work like that.

Kevin Panetta: We were both starting out at the same time, and you come up together and create a peer group, and it’s much better than trying to work with your idols, because they’ve got plenty to do.

Jason Rodriguez: I came in doing anthologies and right from the start I had some great artists working on them. I went from knowing zero artist to knowing a rolodex full of artists. When I first started, especially coming in as a writer,  I set aside 15 minutes a day to find someone online … through their portfolio or whatever… and write them a complimentary note. Not “Hey, I’d love to work with you,” but “Hey, I really love your work. How did you do this?” I literally did that every day for about 2 years. I wrote 700 some-odd artists and that’s how I built that rolodex of people that I knew. Most people never wrote back, but other people formed live-long friendships and I’ve used them in every single book.

Audience member: My understanding has been if you’re an artist, it’s quite easier to find people who have ideas to write about, but if you’re a writer it’s much harder to find an artist looking for writers, because most artists also have plenty of ideas that they are looking to do on their own. If you’re a writer, even artists who don’t have a track record, are going to be hard for you to find to work with. Is that roughly correct?

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Kevin Panetta: Yes, I think that’s true. Also, drawing comics is a lot more labor-intensive than writing comics. I can write a few comics in a month, but a typical schedule for an artist would be to draw almost 30 pages in a month and that’s a lot of work. A page can take anywhere from 10-20 hours depending on if you’re just doing the pencils or if you’re inking and coloring it as well. For that reason, I think artist’s time is a little more precious that writer’s time, and like you said, a lot of artists have their own ideas. As a writer of comics, I feel lucky that any artist wants to draw anything that I write, because they could easily write their own stuff. But some time you have a good vibe with an artist and you do work better together than you would separately.
Paulina Ganucheau:  A lot of the writer’s goal is to make the collaboration work. You need to do a little more legwork because the artist has so much to do.

Kevin Panetta: Yeah, I wrote this comic, but who do you think wants to draw it? Her.

Paulina Ganucheau:  Me. And I think that’s one of the best things about Kevin as a writer. He’s a chameleon with all of the artists he works with and I really appreciate that quality in a writer. And just listening and being open. It takes two to make a comic especially if you’re a writer or an artist. I don’t like the weight that writers take from artists a lot of the time; it should be even because we’re both doing it.

Jason Rodriguez: To highlight that, I think part of it is the language you use. If you approach someone and say, “I have a comic I wrote and I would like you to draw,” all of a sudden that’s  not a collaboration, that’s a work for hire relationship, hiring an employee.

Paulina Ganucheau:   It’s one-sided.

Jason Rodriguez: But it should be a partnership more than anything else, and you should say, “Hey, I like your work. Would you like to do something together?” is a much better way to approach someone.

Paulina Ganucheau:   Yup, yup. It’s collaborative

Kevin Panetta: Everything I do is a collaboration. I’ve never written a script without knowing who the artist is because you want to write to their strengths and you want them to be a part of the process from the beginning. I think better comics turn out that way.

Audience Member: What are some of the comics that you have read recently that you’d recommend?

Jason Rodriguez: Probably the easiest answer right now is March. We’re all DC people so that’s an important one. I’ve been picking up a lot of minicomics because I’m working on some new projects, and I found this great one that I just love. It was explaining the concept of fear to new immigrants. It’s done over an open license so you can print it out for freeand give it to people. I’m trying to push more towards that, so I’m looking for comics in that vein now.

Paulina Ganucheau:  As far as new comics, the new Runaways from Marvel is super-fun and great. My friend Kris Anka draws it and he’s amazing. I’ve been really into Snotgirl by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Leslie Hung. It’s so quirky, and interesting, and unique in its own way. But honestly I’ve been reading a lot of classic manga. A lot of Ranma 1/2 and Oh My Goddess! – classic manga stuff.

Kevin Panetta: I just read a really good Regency Romance coming out soon called The Prince and the Dressmaker. It’s about a prince in in a kingdom who just wants to make clothes, and about him secretly making clothes for a fashionista who lives in Europe in the 1700s. It’s beautiful and amazing. That’s the best thing I’ve read recently. Also Boundless which is a collection of semi-horror stories by one of my favorite artists Jillian Tamaki. It’s really interesting, almost like the Black Mirror show. One of the stories is about a girl who finds an alternative universe version of Facebook where everybody’s living a different version of their life and she becomes really obsessed with it. I love all new Wolverine and X-Men. I work at a comic book store so I probably read 40-50 new comics a week.

Shannon Gallant: The only book I’m really following is Wayward by Jim Zub and Steve Cummings. The thing I like about it is that it’s about a character who’s half-Irish and half-Japanese and she has these mystical powers. The nice thing about it is that the first half of the book is set in Japan, and the next half is set in Ireland, but what’s nice is at the end, they put a lot of information about yokai, Japanese demons and ghosts – factual information written by experts on Japanese or Irish folklore. So you can actually learn, after reading it and going, “What the hell is the guy talking about?” It’s really great and I think it’s a nice way of getting kids interested in folklore by setting up this almost superheroish-type adventure but then giving them factual information.

Kevin Panetta: I think Jim Zub actually went to live in Japan for a while.

Shannon Gallant: I know he’s been there a lot. That’s probably my favorite, but I’m reading old manga. Gegege no Kitaro is all about yokai and I love that.

Mike Rhode: I’m asking the comics will break your heart question of, how many of you can actually make a living in comics, including you Ben?

Ben Towle: I do not make my living solely doing comics. I teach at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). I teach online.

Shannon Gallant. I do. My sole income is from comics. I used to work in PR and advertising so I still do some freelance for people that know me from that, whether it’s storyboards for video shoots or spot illustrations, but predominantly it’s from my work in comics.

Paulina Ganucheau:  Yeah, me as well. I’m full-time freelance. It’s hard but it’s rewarding. You can do it. People say you can’t, but you can do it.

Kevin Panetta: I’m part-time. I had a full-time retail job at the comic store, but I cut down to a few days a week now, and spend more time writing than working in a comic store. I still like doing both, and having a part-time job is nice because freelance isn’t as dependable as working each week.
20171014_125824Ben Towle: Yeah, working in a comics store is at least related. I teach comic classes, so I’m not ‘woe is me.’ I’ve worked in factories and stuff so I’m very happy to be drawing comics some of the time and teaching them the rest of the time.

Jason Rodriguez: Believe it or not, publishing historical anthologies with small to medium size publishers and 30 people in a book does not make a lot of money for a person. I have two jobs, basically full time, but this is the first year where I did pretty good in comics. We mainly did it through getting grants. I love grants. What a good thing. I’m actually mathematician by day and I do a lot of sci-fi writing also, and this year, I did a Kickstarter for a children’s book about particle physics.

Ben Towle: On that note, we’re out of time.

Nate Powell in today's Washington Post Magazine

Powell is March's artist, of course.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Comic Riffs profiles Barry Blitt

Blitt will be at Politics and Prose on Sunday afternoon.

How Barry Blitt became the New Yorker's top political cover artist

Washington Post Comic Riffs blog October 27 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2017/10/27/how-barry-blitt-become-the-new-yorkers-preeminent-and-viral-political-cover-artist/

Nov 12: Comics Q&A and Signing with Tom King!



  • Sunday, November 12 at 12 PM - 2 PM

  • Fantom Comics
    2010 P Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia 20036

    Batman. Vision. Sheriff of Babylon. Grayson. Mister Miracle. Omega Men.

    All of these brilliant books came out of the noggin of celebrated writer Tom King, and he's joining us at Fantom for a signing!

    Can't make it to the shop? We'll be chatting with him for a very special Fantom Friends episode before heading into the signing, so watch this space for details!

    To help move things along and let everyone get a chance to get something signed, we are capping signatures at 2 items per person.

Oct 30: Gareth Hinds POE: STORIES AND POEMS

Gareth Hinds POE: STORIES AND POEMS

Event date: 
Monday, October 30, 2017 - 6:30pm to 7:30pm
Event address:
East City Book Shop
645 Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast, #100
Washington, DC 20003

 

Get ready for an evening of spooky tales with Gareth Hinds' graphic novel adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's best-known stories and poems. Adults and younger readers alike will get shivers down their spines!


In "The Cask of Amontillado," a man exacts revenge on a disloyal friend at carnival, luring him into catacombs below the city. In "The Masque of the Red Death," a prince shielding himself from plague hosts a doomed party inside his abbey stronghold. A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, faced with a swinging blade and swarming rats, can't see his tormentors in "The Pit and the Pendulum," and in "The Tell-Tale Heart," a milky eye and a deafening heartbeat reveal the effects of conscience and creeping madness. Alongside these tales are visual interpretations of three poems — "The Raven," "The Bells," and Poe's poignant elegy to lost love, "Annabel Lee." The seven concise graphic narratives, keyed to thematic icons, amplify and honor the timeless legacy of a master of gothic horror.

About the author: Gareth Hinds is the acclaimed creator of the graphic novels Macbeth, The Odyssey, Beowulf, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and King Lear. Gareth Hinds lives near Washington, D.C.

Poe: Stories and Poems: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Gareth Hinds Cover Image
$14.00
ISBN: 9780763695095
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Candlewick Press (MA) - August 1st, 2017

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Library of Congress Halloween pop-up exhibit features comics

According to the exhibit checklist - at least one issue (modern) of Tales from the Crypt, and an Edward Gorey selection.

Special Pop-Up Exhibition: Oct. 27–Nov. 1, 2017

The Library of Congress is presenting a host of tricks and treats with an autumn pop-up exhibition of more than 200 collection items that embodies seasonal traditions of fantasy and folklore. Making a variety of rarely seen collection items more accessible to the general public, "LOC Halloween: Chambers of Mystery" will show-and-tell the intriguing tales of Halloween and Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, through a variety of treasures representing a wide range of resources within the Library. Learn more »

The exhibition will be on display October 27-31, from 11am-4pm, and November 1, from 11am–2pm, in the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building. Free tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis, but are not required.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Nov. 15: 19th Annual Animation Show of Shows at AFI Silver Theater


The 19th Annual Animation Show of Shows is coming to the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Md., Nov. 15 from noon to 4 p.m. It will feature 16 animated shorts from eight countries. 

CAN YOU DO IT by Quentin Baillieux
• TINY BIG by Lia Bertels
• NEXT DOOR by Pete Docter
• THE ALAN DIMENSION by Jac Clinch
• BEAUTIFUL LIKE ELSEWHERE by Elise Simard
• HANGMAN by Paul Julian & Les Goldman
• THE BATTLE OF SAN ROMANO by Georges Schwitzgebel
• GOKUROSAMA by Aurore Gal, Clémentine Frère, Yukiko Meignien, Anna Mertz, Robin Migliorelli, & Romain Salvini
• DEAR BASKETBALL by Glen Keane
• ISLAND by Robert Löbel & Max Mörtl
• UNSATISFYING by Parallel Studio
• THE BURDEN by Niki Lindroth von Bahr
• LES ABEILLES DOMESTIQUES by Alexanne Desrosiers
• OUR WONDERFUL NATURE - THE COMMON CHAMELEON by Tomer Eshed
• CASINO by Steven Woloshen
• EVERYTHING by David OReilly

 
Below is what's posted on the show's Facebook page:

With the work of 9 women directors featuring Niki Lindroth von Bahr's Annecy Grand Prix winning "The Burden," David OReilly's "Everything," and Glen Keane's interpretation of Kobe Bryant's "Dear Basketball" poem, this collection offers an incredible array of beautiful, funny, insightful, inspiring, powerful and thought-provoking shorts. Woven in the show are Pete Docter's 1990 CalArts student film "Next Door," restored by the Academy Film Archive, and Paul Julian and Les Goldman's 1964 "Hangman," restored by The Animation Show of Shows, Inc. with grants from ASIFA Hollywood and The National Film Preservation Foundation.

This past year we played in over 70 theaters across North America and are working to more than quadruple our reach to colleges and universities in North America and around the world. Alums, students, faculty, contact us right away so we can arrange screenings on your campuses. We can play it in classrooms, lecture halls, auditoriums and theaters.

Last year we had invaluable volunteers like Debra Solomon who handed out postcards at an ASIFA East Awards and rode her bike across Manhattan to hang posters for our first NYC showing; the enthusiastic members of San Jose State's Shrunken Head Man Club handed out postcards around town and on campus; SMC Professor Jim Keeshan's students distributed postcards and mini posters throughout the greater Los Angeles area; and Brown University's Professor Barbara Meier's TA rallied students to stop into all the local coffee houses, bookstores, dorms, and school halls in Providence to make our two week run at the Cable Car Cinema a huge success.

This is the year for animation fans to help increase the attendance at showings of the Show of Shows in all cities by encouraging friends to attend in distant cities where we play. Be a part of this success story: help get the word out there and sign up on our mailing list so we can update you on our upcoming showings; complete our survey to tell us that you want to help and we'll all benefit from our fans' participation. Let's get the word out and spread the joy of brilliant animated shorts!
http://bit.ly/2ahY0T3

Ian Gordon on Superman for a Smithsonian site

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Positive Symbol of American Power!

Rarely an Agent of the Government, Superman Defended the 'American Way' Through Simple Decency and Acts of Charity

By Ian Gordon

October 23, 2017

http://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/identities/its-a-bird-its-a-plane-its-a-positive-symbol-of-american-power/

Roye Okupe profiled on ICv2

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

DCist on ReDistricted

This Digital Anthology Draws Out D.C. History In Comic Form

Library of Congress to archive The Beat comic site

Lion Forge Acquires Comics Site The BEAT

Library of Congress exhibit on women cartoonists opening next month

From Hilary Price's newsletter:

One of my cartoons will be in the exhibition Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists, but the Library of Congress hasn't yet announced the show on their website.

The exhibition Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists  is scheduled to open at the Library of Congress on November 18, 2017, and will run through October 20, 2018, in two rotations, with a completely new selection in May.  Inspired by the Library's rich collections, the exhibit features the remarkable but little known contributions made by North American women to two popular art forms—illustration and cartooning. In fields traditionally dominated by men, many women have long earned their livelihoods creating art intended for reproduction and wide dissemination in newspapers, periodicals, and books. Spanning the late 1800s to the present, some sixty selected drawings and prints highlight the gradual broadening, in both the private and public spheres, of women's roles and interests, addressing such themes as evolving ideals of feminine beauty, new opportunities emerging  for women in society, changes in gender relations, and issues of human welfare. An online version of the exhibit is planned for the Library's website and a companion book Drawn to Purpose is scheduled for release in spring, 2018.

 




Monday, October 23, 2017

SPX 2017 Ignatz Awards and one last panel are online

2017 Ignatz Awards

The Ignatz Award, named for the character in the classic comic strip Krazy Kat by George Herriman, is the festival prize of the Small Press Expo, that since 1997 has recognized outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning. The Ignatz recognizes exceptional work that challenges popular notions of what comics can achieve, both as an art form and as a means of personal expression. Awards celebration on Saturday, September 16 @ 9:30 PM from The Marriott Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center in Rockville, MD. Hosted by Caitlin McGurk

SPX 2017 Panel - 1001 Knights Roundtable: An Artist Discussion About Work and People Positivity

Artists from the 1001 Knights anthology join curators Annie Stoll & Kevin Jay Stanton to discuss their work and process in relation to the journey of the 1001 Knights books. This is a safe, creative, and positive space where artists Shannon Wright, Zack Clemente, Alice Meichi Li, Barbara Perez Marquez & Deandra Tan come together to uplift and express themselves. Embracing each other in this way has made for some amazing, creative and inspiring art! We hope that the art and the spirit of 1001 Knights inspires everyone who watches this panel discussion to make the world a better place through art, dialogue, and action in their own lives!

Matt Wuerker cartoon up for auction for charity

Framed, original political cartoon by POLITICO cartoonist Matt Wuerker

Item Number
367
Estimated Value
$300 USD
Opening Bid
$100 USD
Buy Now Price
$375 USD
Online Open
Nov 6, 2017 7:00 AM EST
Online Close
Nov 15, 2017 8:00 PM EST

Ask a question about this item.

Item Description

Up for auction is an original political cartoon by Pulitzer-prize winning POLITICO cartoonist Matt Wuerker. Matted and Framed in an 11x17 frame, this one-of-a-kind features Donald Trump as a Where The Wild Things Are monster

----

Subastar es una caricatura política original del ganador del premio Pulitzer, el dibujante POLITICO Matt Wuerker. Enmarañado y enmarcado en un marco de 11x17, este único presenta Donald Trump como monstruo de Where The Wild Things Are

Special Instructions

  • Shipping not included
  • The glare on the auction listing image is due only to lighting and a bad photographer. The actual framed artwork does not have that glare.

 

  • Envío no incluido
  • El resplandor en la imagen de la lista de subastas se debe solo a la iluminación y a un mal fotógrafo. La obra de arte enmarcada no tiene ese resplandor.

LOC curator Sara Duke's courtroom illustration exhibit featured on tv

Courtroom illustrators: Going where cameras are banned


https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/courtroom-illustrators-going-where-cameras-are-banned/

Lee Cowan introduces us to the artists who capture the famous and the infamous in the courtroom with ink, pastels and watercolor.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Jan 18: Mary and the Witch's Flower anime premiere


This one looks beautiful, and is by two Studio Ghibli alumni.


'Mary and The Witch's Flower' to Premiere in Cinemas for Special One-Night Adventure January 18

 

The Debut Feature From Studio Ponoc Will Screen in Movie Theaters Nationwide, Featuring an Exclusive Interview With the Academy Award®-Nominated Filmmakers

 

DENVER – October 18, 2017 – GKIDS and Fathom Events are partnering on the much-anticipated debut title from Studio Ponoc, "Mary and The Witch's Flower," which will get a special one-night national premiere on the big screen this January, prior to its wide theatrical release. This stunning, action-packed fantasy adventure is the second collaboration
between Academy Award®-nominated director Hiromasa Yonebayashi (who directed Studio Ghibli's When Marnie Was There and The Secret World of Arrietty) and fellow two-time Academy Award®-nominated producer Yoshiaki Nishimura (Studio Ghibli's The Tale of The Princess Kaguya and When Marnie Was There). 
 

Presented by GKIDS, Fathom Events and Studio Ponoc, "Mary and The Witch's Flower" will hit cinemas nationwide on Thursday, January 18 for a special premiere event with two showings, one at 7:00 p.m. (dubbed in English featuring Ruby Barnhill, Kate Winslet and Jim Broadbent) and the second at 8:00 p.m. (subtitled in English) local time. In addition to the feature content, audiences will be treated to an exclusive interview with the filmmakers as well as a special commemorative item (while supplies last at select locations). "Mary and The Witch's Flower" will open in select cinemas nationwide for regular screenings starting January 19

Tickets for the January 18 screenings of "Mary and The Witch's Flower" can be purchased beginning Friday, October 20, by visiting www.FathomEvents.com or at participating theater box offices. A complete list of theater locations will be available October 20 on the Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change).

Mary, an ordinary twelve-year-old girl, is bored and lonely during a summer holiday. She follows an odd cat into the nearby woods where she stumbles upon a flower and then a little broomstick.  Together the flower and broomstick whisk her above the clouds, far away to Endor College – a school of magic! At Endor, Mary tells a lie that leads to peril, and then a promise, while discovering that all is not as it seems at the school – there are experiments that horrify. Soon she confronts great danger, and a test of her resolve.
 

"Studio Ponoc has created a remarkable debut with 'Mary and The Witch's Flower,' full of the beauty and adventure we have come to expect from such an accomplished filmmaking team," said David Jesteadt, President of GKIDS. "We look forward to continuing our relationship with the filmmakers, as well as Fathom Events, to create a very special night for fans that have been anticipating this film for as long as we have."

"Fathom is thrilled to bring audiences the first look at the first film from Japan's Studio Ponoc with this special one-night premiere of 'Mary and The Witch's Flower,'" said Kymberli Frueh, Fathom Events VP of Programming. "This is an enchanting, gorgeously animated, fantasy-adventure, and the perfect event to kick off the 2018 slate of anime and animated offerings we are presenting with GKIDS."



Locally, it's showing for one night at

Nov 1: Tamora Pierce at Politics and Prose

She's written for Marvel & Dynamite Entertainment.

Tamora Pierce w/ co-authors: Julie Holderman, Timothy Liebe and Megan Messinger - Tortall: A Spy's Guide

Wednesday, November 1 at 7 p.m.
$24.99
ISBN: 9780375867675
Availability: Coming Soon—Pre-Order Now
Published: Random House Books for Young Readers - October 31st, 2017

Tamora Pierce is a fantasy legend for teens, best-known for portraying strong, believable heroines. She has penned eighteen books and several short stories set in the fantasy universe of Tortall. Here this universe is brought back to life. Spymaster George Cooper is cleaning out his office when he finds a special crate. This book is a glimpse through the crate, which contains letters, timelines, threat profiles and training documents. It's as much a historical collection as it is a spy training manual. Readers who have missed characters like Alanna, Daine, Thom and Queen Thayet will be transported back into their world. Ages 12 and up.





Annapolis publisher to add graphic novels

Dead Reckoning Will Specialize in Military and Naval GNs
by Milton Griepp on October 20, 2017
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/38720/icv2-interview-gary-thompson-new-imprint