Washington's Jake Tapper on NY Times lack of cartoons

CNN's Jake Tapper: New York Times Decision to Scrap Cartoons 'One More Nail in Coffin of Struggling Art Form'

Tapper tells The Daily Beast that the Times should be a leader for editorial cartooning, while James Bennet, editorial page editor, says the decision is 'right for our readers.'

Lloyd Grove

06.12.19

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnns-jake-tapper-new-york-times-decision-to-scrap-cartoons-one-more-nail-in-coffin-of-struggling-art-form

July 12-14: Blerdcon in Crystal City

Here's your basic placeholder announcement -

Jul 12-14, 2019 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Virginia

https://blerdcon.com/about-blerdcon/

June 22: Rob Rogers at the Newseum

'Enemy of the People: A Cartoonist's Journey'

https://www.newseum.org/event/enemy-of-the-people-a-cartoonists-journey/

When:

June 22, 2019 @ 2:30 pm

Where:

Knight TV Studio
555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington DC 20001

Cost:

Included with Newseum admission.

Inside Media

Editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers talks about his new book, "Enemy of the People: A Cartoonist's Journey," which chronicles his firing from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after the paper's editorial director refused to publish several of his cartoons critical of President Trump.

Rogers had been editorial cartoonist for the newspaper for more than 25 years and was fired in June 2018 after he had 18 cartoons or cartoon ideas spiked earlier in the year by Post-Gazette management.

"Enemy of the People" also features highlights of Rogers' political cartoons over the last three years, his coverage of past presidents, a tutorial on creating editorial cartoons and two long-form comics. The book also includes brief essays contributed by notable cartoonists and journalists championing the First Amendment and lauding the craft of editorial cartooning.

A book signing will follow the program.

If you are a Newseum member and would like to RSVP for this program, please email membership@newseum.org. Become a Newseum member and receive free admission and priority seating at this program and others.

Priority seating is subject to availability.

Sept 4: Randall Munroe in DC

SEP4

Randall Munroe: HOW TO

Public

 · Hosted by Politics and Prose Bookstore

https://www.facebook.com/events/690038051425194/

• Wednesday, September 4, 2019 at 7 PM – 8 PM

• Sidwell Friends: Meeting House 3825 Wisconsin Avenue, Washington, District of Columbia 20016

• Tickets by Eventbrite

  • Ticket Only

    $20.00
  • Ticket & Book

    $35.00

Tom King on not using the old "Marvel Method"

Tom King Apologizes for Not Letting Artists Write His Comics

by Jude Terror June 11, 2019

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/06/11/tom-king-apologizes-for-not-letting-artists-write-his-comics/

Cavna on the NY Times cartoon harikari

The New York Times cuts all political cartoons, and cartoonists are not happy

By Michael Cavna

Washington Post June 11 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/06/11/new-york-times-cuts-all-political-cartoons-cartoonists-are-not-happy/

The Hill on the NY Times dropping all political cartoons

New York Times to stop publishing political cartoons

By Justin Wise - 06/10/19

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/447829-new-york-times-to-stop-publishing-political-cartoons

June 17: Sarah Boxer booksigning in Denver

Sarah emailed: "I'm doing a book slide-talk at Tattered Cover LoDo  (short for Lower Downtown) in Denver (my hometown) on Monday June 17 at 7 pm."

She'll be in DC at Politics and Prose in July.

Tom King off Batman, but still planning changes to him

Despite Setback, Tom King Still Plans to Redefine Batman for a Generation

 by Jude Terror June 6, 2019

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/06/06/despite-setback-tom-king-still-plans-to-redefine-batman-for-a-generation/

Flugennock's Latest'n'Greatest: "A Snake in the Grass"

Another marijuana cartoon from DC's anarchist cartoonist Mike Flugennock:

"Snake In The Grass"
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=2741

Liberty Cap writes on Twitter on 06.09.19:
"Home grow cannabis is the most important economic factor put upon any 
Government regulating cannabis and the industry to keep em honest and 
on their toes. Competition promotes excellence and reduces prices, 
that the American way. Limited access to market is capitalism gone 
wrong."

https://twitter.com/LibertyCap420/status/1137716881618378753

DCMJ.org weighs in on DC Mayor Bowser's "Safe Cannabis Act" regarding 
locally-grown cannabis:
"...DCMJ wants expert growers to be able to sell their excess cannabis 
at farmer's markets in the District of Columbia. By providing an 
outlet for locally grown cannabis, the DC government can ensure more 
dollars are circulated locally and collect sales tax. Moreover, many 
growers do not have the capital to invest in a large-scale growing 
facility, but can provide the marketplace with unique varieties of 
cannabis. Some strains of cannabis are not profitable for large-scale 
cultivation, but small home growers can fill the niche if they are 
given the opportunity to sell their extra cannabis. There is a fine 
line between legal sales and illegal sales and we believe it primarily 
involves volume of sales. No one cares if a gardener in DC sells their 
extra tomatoes to their next-door neighbor, and we believe the same 
case should be made for cannabis. However, if an adult wants to sell 
in an established marketplace, we believe they should obtain a 
"micro-cultivators license" to ensure they follow the rules. With this 
license, the grower would be permitted to transport more cannabis than 
regular citizens would be permitted to possess outside of their 
homes..."



The current initial draft of the Safe Cannabis Act contains 
constraints on the sharing of cannabis and has no provisions for the 
legal sale of home-grown cannabis; much of this is due to the 
influence of large-scale operations who want to corner the market for 
adult-use and medical cannabis.

Most of the gray-market "pop-ups" which became popular in the wake of 
Initiative 71 – many of which were busted at some point – aren't 
selling DC-grown bud, but product often smuggled in from California 
and Oregon, with no way of telling how it was grown, what types of 
fertilizers were used, whether or not chemical pesticides were used, 
etc. Giving DC local home growers a "Fair Shot" would go a long way 
toward eliminating this issue, and keep all that money in DC.

Keep in mind that passage of the Safe Cannabis Act depends on the 
passage of the DC budget bill without the notorious Harris Rider, 
which prevented DC from taxing and regulating the legal sale of 
cannabis. The Rider was written out of the bill thanks to the efforts 
of DC Congressional Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton; the bill passed out of 
the House Oversight Committee, but still needs to get through the 
Senate and be signed by Mr. T.

Local home-grown cannabis is essential to countering the threat of big 
money and "Big Weed". The Plant belongs to the People.

That darn Dustin

This joke bombed

Bill Cowdrey, Alexandria

Washington Post June 8 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/readers-critique-the-post-people-we-should-remember-and-folks-wed-better-forget/2019/06/07/d4c0a13c-8945-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html

Josh Kramer on The Nib

The Census Adds the Citizenship Question

by Stats (aka Josh Kramer in this instance)

June 7th, 2019

https://thenib.com/the-census-adds-the-citizenship-question

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat with Sarah Boxer

Boxer and Powder Wash

by Mike Rhode

Earlier this year, Sarah Boxer interviewed Jaime Hernandez at Politics and Prose bookstore. Until that evening, I had no idea that she lived in Washington (as she's a regular writer for New York-based publications), let alone that she was a cartoonist. We chatted briefly, and she's answered our usual questions -- extremely well as you'd expect from a professional essayist.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I do long-form comics (books). Since I don't like drawing human beings, all my comics have animals rather than humans in them. And most of them play as much with language and ideas as with line. In fact some of my comics, particularly my psycho-comics, Mother May I? and In the Floyd Archives, both have footnotes. And I've recently finished Hamlet: Prince of Pigs, a comic-books version of Hamlet; it's full of visual puns, beginning with the fact that Ham-let is a little ham, a pig!

Tomorrow, June 8, is the publication date for Mother May I?: A Post-Floydian Folly and the date for the republication of In the Floyd Archives: A Psycho-Bestiary. I'll be at Politics and Prose on July 13 at 1 pm.

How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

I've worked mostly in pen or pencil in smallish (8x5) Strathmore notebooks. But recently the difficulty and expense of transferring paper to a publishable digital form makes me think I need to give up pen and paper. This upsets my son, who is also a cartoonist and insists that paper and pencil are best. But I find drawing on a tablet relaxing. It's easy to erase and fix small details and work on nuances of facial expression. The only snag was once losing all of my saved drawings on a Samsung Tablet. I have since switched tablets.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

I was raised in the 1960s and 1970s in Colorado and published my first comic (a single panel of an elf in a snowstorm) at age 11 in my local newspaper.

Why are you in Washington now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?

I moved from New York to Washington eleven years ago with my husband and son, because my husband, Harry Cooper, got a job as the curator of Modern Art at the National Gallery. We now live in Cleveland Park, not far from the zoo, so I have lots of live models.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

I was raised on Peanuts and went to college in Krazy Kat. Seriously, though, I don't have a lot of formal training in cartooning. I remember taking only one cartooning class, at Parsons. (R.O. Blechman came to speak to us.) But I've done a lot of life drawing (at the Art Students League, Parsons, the New York Academy of Art).  By far, the most absorbing drawing instruction I ever had was the Drawing Marathon at the Studio School. (I wrote up my experience in The New York Times.) I remember that one of the huge drawings I made over a week's time had a little cartoonish figure up on a ladder and Graham Nickson, the teacher who led the crits, asked, pointedly, "What happened here?"

Mother May I? page

Who are your influences?

I wouldn't call them influences, but the cartoonists I admired most as a kid were Charles Schulz, William Steig, Saul Steinberg, R.O. Blechman, JJ Sempé, and George Herriman. Ach, I see they're all men! I wish I could change history, but I can't.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

I guess I'd be born a boy. 

What work are you best-known for?

If anyone knows me for my comics, it's got to be for my first psycho-comic, In the Floyd Archives: A Psycho-Bestiary, based on Freud's case histories, which Pantheon published in 2001. (It's now being republished.) But it's likelier that people know me for my writing. I was at The New York Times for 16 years. There I was a photography critic, book review editor, and arts reporter. And since all my editors at the Times knew I especially loved comics, I got to write the obituaries for Saul Steinberg and Charles Schulz. I also got to interview Art Spiegelman when the second volume of Maus came out. And I got to sit in William Steig's orgone box. 

As a freelance writer, I still often write about comics. Last year I wrote an essay for The Atlantic about why it's so hard for cartoonists to lampoon Trump, and this October my Atlantic essay "The Exemplary Narcissism of Snoopy" will appear in the book The Peanuts Papers. I have also written quite a lot about comics for The New York Review of Books. My first essay there was on Krazy Kat and my most recent piece there was a review of Jason Lutes's epic, Berlin.

What work are you most proud of?

I'm most proud of my new psycho-comic Mother May I? I like that it's loose and rigorous at the same time. And I am tickled beyond belief that both Alison Bechdel and Jonathan Lethem are fans of it! I'm also proud that some selections from my first tragic-comic Hamlet: Prince of Pigs were published by the NYR Daily.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I'm looking forward to diving into drawing my next Shakespearean tragic-comic Anchovius Caesar: The Decomposition of a Romaine Salad, in which Julius Caesar is an anchovy and all the action takes place underwater.

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

I write when I have drawer's block; and I draw when I have writer's block.

What do you think will be the future of your field? 

Mother May I? page

I think the future of comics is online. The experience of trying to get a nice clean copy of Mother May I? set for publication made me realize that I need a very good tablet with a pen, so I don't ever have to go through the copy process again. That's how I composed Hamlet: Prince of Pigs. I find using a tablet very liberating. It's easier to change little expressions on the faces of my characters. It's nice not to have a lap full of eraser dust. And in the end, it's much easier to get my comic to a publisher or printer!

What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, or others? Any comments about attending them?

I go every year to the Small Press Expo with my (now 15-year-old) son, Julius Boxer-Cooper, who's also a cartoonist, and this year I am sharing an exhibitor's table (or rather a half-table) with him. In school he hands out zines -- or, as he calls them, cackets (short for comics-packets) to his classmates. Here are his words of wisdom for would-be cartoonists:  "If you're going to be a 'zine cartoonist, then you're going to have to get used to seeing your comics torn, crumpled, thrown on the ground, thrown in the recycling, or thrown in the trash with strawberry or raspberry Gogurt that's a few weeks old dumped over them." I admire his toughness! And his comics! 

For our debut at SPX, Julius and I are working on our first collaboration -- a comic called Corgi Morgue, which is about a corgi (that's a dog) and his wife (also a dog) who run a morgue for animals and also serve Indian food, particularly coorgi murgh, to their grieving clients.

Boxer & Jaime Herandez

What's your favorite thing about DC?

I love that the museums, the zoos, and many of the musical performances are free. I'm proud of the protests against our horrible president. I also love the racial openness and relative harmony of DC. They are rarities in this country.

Least favorite?

I despise our very orange very nasty President in the very very white White House.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

I love taking people to the East Wing of the National Gallery, especially the rooms devoted to Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

I'd rather eat in New York. 

Do you have a website or blog?

I wrote a book about blogging and how I'd never do it, Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web. So now I feel I have an obligation never to blog. But I do have a website. It's sarahboxer.weebly.com . 

(updated 6/8/19 with Mr. Cooper's name and correcting the SPX quote)

The Post reviews Secret Life of Pets 2

'The Secret Life of Pets 2': Not a good dog, but an okay one [in print as This animated sequel isn't a dog, but it does have some fleas]

By Kristen Page-Kirby

Washington Post June 7 2019, p. Weekend 23

https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/the-secret-life-of-pets-2-not-a-good-dog-but-an-okay-one/2019/06/05/83fdede4-8496-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html

Washington reviews of the last X-Men movie

Dark Phoenix is the Disappointing End of an X-Men Era [in print as Ashes to Ashes].

The franchise tries the Dark Phoenix Saga once again.

Alan Zilberman

Washington City Paper June 7, 2019 p. 19

online at https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/arts/film-tv/article/21072005/dark-phoenix-reviewed

With 'Dark Phoenix,' the X-Men saga goes out with a whimper, not a bang [in print as X-Men's probable swan song is a dirge]

By Michael O'Sullivan

Washington Post June 7 2019, p. Weekend 21.

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/with-dark-phoenix-the-x-men-saga-goes-out-with-a-whimper-not-a-bang/2019/06/04/2fa7ad44-848b-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html 

'Dark Phoenix' Channels The Cosmic Power Of The Comics, Avoids Going Down In Flames 

Glen Weldon  

NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour June 6, 2019

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/729639093/dark-phoenix-channels-the-cosmic-power-of-the-comics-avoids-going-down-in-flames

 

'Dark Phoenix' Review: X-Women Power? Nah

The new installment in the long-running franchise has blowouts and Jessica Chastain channeling Tilda Swinton (so it could be worse).

By Manohla Dargis

A version of this article appears in print on June 7, 2019, on Page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: Superhero Tale With Feminist Spin, Till Momentum Fails

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/movies/dark-phoneix-review.html

Watch Sophie Turner and Michael Fassbender Battle in 'Dark Phoenix'

The writer Simon Kinberg narrates a sequence from his directing debut in the X-Men franchise.

By Mekado Murphy

• June 7, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/movies/dark-phoenix-clip.html

https://www.nytimes.com/video/movies/100000006545429/dark-phoenix-scene.html

Cavna talks to the Oatmeal

Cartoonist Matthew Inman will step away from the Oatmeal after his latest — and possibly final — book

By Michael Cavna

Washington Post June 6 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/06/06/cartoonist-matthew-inman-will-step-away-oatmeal-after-his-latest-possibly-last-book/

The Post on Peanuts and D-Day

How Snoopy helped us remember D-Day

By Blake Scott Ball

Washington Post June 6  2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/06/how-snoopy-saved-d-day/

Joshua Luna interviewed at The Beat

Joshua Luna Explains Why He Took to Twitter About Image Refusing to Publish His New Book

06/03/2019 11:30 am by Samantha Puc

https://www.comicsbeat.com/joshua-luna-americanizasian-image-comics/

Library of Congress increases access to comic book collection

The Joy of Reading Comics

June 5, 2019 by Malea Walker

https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/06/the-joy-of-reading-comics/

Tonight June 5: Matthew Inman at Politics and Prose at Union Market

Matthew Inman - Why My Cat Is More Impressive Than Your Baby — at Politics and Prose at Union Market

Wednesday, June 5, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Politics and Prose at Union Market   1270 5th Street NE   Washington   DC    20002

Why My Cat Is More Impressive Than Your Baby (Paperback)

By Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal

$14.99

ISBN: 9781524850623

Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing - June 4th, 2019

Since 2009 Inman, an Eisner Award-winning cartoonist, has provided a steady stream of original comics, quizzes, articles, and more on his webcomic, TheOatmeal.com. His new book follows the hilarious How to Tell If Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You with another installment of the best from Oatmeal along with previously unpublished work. Here Inman presents his signature cat jokes, comics about cats—as well as about babies, dogs, lasers, selfies, and pigeons—and a series of helpful guides to questions such as how to comfortably sleep next to your cat, how to befriend a misanthropic cat, and how to hold a baby when you are not used to holding babies.