Monday, October 12, 2020

Max Meow Book Launch!

Max Meow Book Launch!
John Gallagher
Beyond Comics October 6 2020
 

Oct 14: Brad Meltzer and Chris Eliopoulos

Wednesday, October 14 at 7 p.m.
Brad Meltzer and Chris Eliopoulos
I Am Anne Frank and I Am Benjamin Franklin | Ages 5-9

Oct 13: Jason Reynolds and Danica Novgorodoff with Gene Yang

Tuesday, October 13 at 7 p.m.
Jason Reynolds and Danica Novgorodoff with Gene Yang
Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel | Ages 12+
Register

Al Goodwyn's editorial cartoon newsletter

The new 'issue' for 10/12/20 is out.

Oct 17: KAL: Daggers Drawn / Baltimore Sun & Economist Cartoonist

Since this is both in person and on Facebook, I reached out to the gallery owner who says, " We can only have about 10 folks in the gallery at a time. We will have a tent on the sidewalk with seating outside. We will rotate the people in the gallery and will be streaming to the folks outside."  KAL is one of the premiere editorial cartoonists of our day, working both in the US and England, and I strongly recommend his work.
'KAL' 
JUST IN TIME FOR THE ELECTIONS!!

Cartoonist / Satirist / Animator
It's an election year (as if you did not know) so we are going to have some fun with the works of KAL. 
Kevin Kallaugher is the international award-winning editorial cartoonist for The Economist magazine of London and The Baltimore Sun. We're offering his original pen & ink drawings, open edition prints along with never before released 'covers' from the Economist.

KAL will be in the gallery and treating us to a live demo. Because of restrictions, we will limit the number of folks in the gallery but will streaming to overflow on the the sidewalk.

 
Artist Reception:  Saturday, October 17th 4:00-6 p.m. 
Demo and Artist Talk Live and on Facebook Live 4:30-5:15 p.m.
Exhibition Dates:  October 7–November 6, 2020
Book signing of 'Daggers Drawn' & personalization of work, day of of the reception.
KAL
This exhibition will showcase original pen and ink drawings and prints, including never released 'covers' from the Economist.

In a distinguished career than spans 42 years, Kal has created over 10000 cartoons and 150 magazine covers.  His resumé includes six collections of his published work including his celebrated 35th year anthology of Economist cartoons titled Daggers Drawn.
Kal's work has been exhibited in a dozen countries receiving awards and honors in seven.
These awards include Feature Cartoonist of the Year (UK), The Thomas Nast Prize (Germany) Cartoon of the Year (Europe), and The 2017 Berryman award (US), Herblock Prize (US) and twice finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (US).
He has created acclaimed animations and calendars, toured the US with Second City improv comedy troupe and addressed audiences in more than 40 states and 30 countries. Kal has presented TEDx talks in Warwick, England, Jackson Hole, WY and IdeaCity in Toronto. In addition, Kal has spoken at Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Duke and Berkeley Universities, Pixar Studios and Google HQ.
Kal, a Norwalk, Connecticut native and Harvard graduate, is the former artist-in-residence at University of Maryland Baltimore County, the Masterworks Museum in Bermuda and the Studios at Key West.
Kevin Kallaugher is a past President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and Cartoonists Rights Network International.
 
In 1999, The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons said of Kevin "Commanding a masterful style, Kallaugher stands among the premier caricaturists of the (twentieth) century."



KAL's pen is mighty strong!

Crystal Moll
Crystal Moll Gallery
Crystal Moll
Crystal Moll
Email
Crystal Moll Gallery
Fine Art and Custom Framing

Our mailing address is:
1030 South Charles Street Baltimore Maryland 21230
Gallery : 443-759-4235
Crystal Moll Cell: 410-952-2843
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 12 noon-6





We have been voted Baltimore's Best gallery for 6 years in Baltimore Magazines Readers Poll.
Thanks!!


Sunday, October 11, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Steve Artley

 

Recent Cartoon (click on Image for larger view)

"All We Have to Cheer is Cheer Itself"

©2020 Steven G Artley • artleytoons • ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


Oct 15: Race in America - The Philip Guston Controversy

Race in America: The Philip Guston Controversy

October 15 | 2:00 p.m. ET 
Race in America
The Philip Guston Controversy

Kaywin Feldman
Director, National Gallery of Art 

Register for a reminder

That darn Philip Guston

National Gallery director defends postponement of show with Klan images but will rethink opening date [in print as Gallery chief: Delaying show was right call].

That darn Walt Carr, Tom Toles and Doonesbury

Washington Post October 10 2020

Listen to the something they said [Walt Carr letter]

Dan Melchior


Thanks, 'Doonesbury' [letter]

Amy Schaffer


Franklin, my dear . . . [Tom Toles letter]

K.N. Rauch,

The Post interviews Merrill Markoe

Comedian and writer Merrill Markoe dug deep into her childhood musings to explore memory [in print as Exploring the monster her mother created]

The Post interviews Brosh

'Solutions and Other Problems' author Allie Brosh talks cats, depressions and the joys of Zoom book tours [in print as A memoirist's long-awaited - and emotional - follow-up]

Kennicott on Daumier and government corruption

I returned to the National Gallery seeking comfort. But art no longer feels like an escape. [Daumier; in print as When art no longer feels like an escape.]

Thursday, October 08, 2020

October 8th - coincidence, cartoonists, and mortality - reflections on Pekar and Thompson

 by Mike Rhode

October 8th is the birthday of the two cartoonists I'm most closely professionally associated with... and they've both passed away. Bah.

But I'm glad to have known both Richard Thompson (1957-2016) and Harvey Pekar (1939-2010), even if it was for too short a time.

I was reminded of this odd coincidence today when Amy Thompson returned Richard's copy of the book I'd edited about Pekar to me. Talk about regifting...

I met Harvey in 2005 when I was called in to substitute as an interviewer for him when he was the guest of honor at the Small Press Expo. We did 2 panels together (including Ed Piskor's first con appearance!). I offered up the interviews to Tom Inge for his Conversations with cartoonists series at University Press of Mississippi. Instead of passing them along to someone else, he had me do the book which appeared as Harvey Pekar: Conversations. I'm sure it's their lowest seller in the series, which would probably give Harvey some type of odd satisfaction, while also pissing him off. (By the way, Harvey picked that cover photo.)
 
Joel Pollack introduced me to Richard Thompson at the opening of the Cartoon America exhibit at the Library of Congress in November 2007. Richard lived in Arlington like I do, and we hit it off and began going to museum shows and book talks together. Eventually I got roped into driving him to comics cons as Cul de Sac became a fledgling hit. The driving was fine, but the leaving wasn't. Richard never met a deadline he couldn't run up against, so we were always leaving late for whatever con we were heading towards. As Richard got sicker from Parkinson's disease, a group of his friends including Chris Sparks, Bill Watterson, David Apatoff and Nick Galifianakis were working on a book tribute about him. I was eventually brought in as production editor as deadlines were blown as though Richard was doing the book himself. The Art of Richard Thompson, now sadly out of print, is a beautiful tribute to a master cartoonist by other masters and well worth bidding up high on e-bay.

One lesson to draw from this might be to not let me do a book about you. I can't argue with that. But rather I'd like you to think about these two cartoonists and their works. In some ways, they couldn't be more different. 
 
Richard was a cartoonist- word and pictures always went together for him, and he struggled to do one without the other, which is why Cul de Sac didn't survive him, even with Stacy Curtis doing excellent art, and it's why a strip written by Richard and drawn by Bill Watterson never made it past gestation.

Harvey, on the other hand, was a writer. He worked with whomever he could afford, beginning at the top with Robert Crumb due to their friendship. Harvey was a self-publisher of American Splendor for a long, long time, before some of the major publishers picked it up for a few issues before passing it back to him. Richard, as far as I can tell, always worked for a publisher, even if it was his high school yearbook, or a science fiction fanzine, until he settled into long time freelance relationships with the Washington Post and US News & World Report among others.

But what both Richard and Harvey had in common was stubbornness and a belief in their own work. Both kept plugging away, until a brass ring appeared - like Andrews McMeel's syndicating Cul de Sac, or the excellent American Splendor movie. Sometimes that stubbornness worked against them though - I saw New Yorker cover editor Francoise Mouly practically begging Richard to do a piece for her, but he never did. And he didn't start his strip when he was first asked by the Post, but waited about a decade before beginning it. Similarly, Harvey had a regular appearance on David Letterman, but he burned up that lifeline by criticizing Letterman's corporate owners that actually aired the show.

So ... they were artists and had what is sometimes offhandedly described as an artistic temperament. They could drive me crazy at time, but Harvey always would get in the phrase, "Let me know if I can do something for you... within reason," when we chatted, and Richard was always willing to hang out, or pass along a recommendation or gift a piece of art he'd drawn. I miss them both, even moreso as the days get shorter.
 
People say that as long as you're remembered, part of you is still alive (or something like that), but that's a bit of cold comfort. Still, reading either of them will warm you up and bring a bit of spark and joie de vivre into your life. And who doesn't need that in 2020?

PS - today another friend of mine recommends Richard's work via his Who's Out There? blog




Quarantine Q&A with TJ Kirsch

 I missed this yesterday, but the video is available at Facebook.
 
Quarantine Q&A with TJ Kirsch
Leah Ly
Fantom Comics October 7 2020

We're doing another comic creator event for your enjoyment. We'll be talking to cartoonist TJ Kirsch about his work; in particular about his newest project Willie Nelson: A Graphic History, in which he teams up with several other artists to tell the story of this country music icon from Hill County, Texas.

Mike Jenkins has outdone himself - this year's Trump pumpkin caricature

by Mike Rhode

In 2015, Arlington cartoonist Mike Jenkins carved a pumpkin into Donald Trump's likeness; it went viral. 

This year, Mike has returned to the same theme. But bigger. And badder.


Look at those little orange hands!

 
Mike's available to caricature anyone you choose, too. In fact, I've asked him to draw me this Trump caricature in ink when he has time. Here's our coronavirus interview with him.
 

Just to be clear, Mike's on the right (but really to the left)

Look at the size of this monster!


Even the number means something

 

I've asked Mike to make postcards and Halloween cards via a print-on-demand service of this great caricature, and I'll let you know if he does.



Tom Toles retiring?!


News is leaking out of the Washington Post that Tom Toles, Washington Post cartoonist since 2002 has put in his retirement notice, effective in November.

Toles, although he doesn't look it, is 68 years old, born on October 22, 1951. More information on his career is at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Toles
 
UPDATED: 
 
The Washingtonian has more details:
 

Tom Toles Will Leave the Washington Post

 

Editorial Cartoon by Steve Artley

 

Recent Cartoon (click on Image for larger view)

"Lord of the Fly"

©2020 Steven G Artley • artleytoons • ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


Monday, October 05, 2020

Flugennock's Latest'n'Greatest: "Instant Karma!"

From DC's anarchist cartoonist, Mike Flugennock -

"Instant Karma!"
http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=3076

So, aaaanyway... everybody and their cat have been speculating for months about what they think the "October Surprise" will be in this campaign, and wot'tha FUUUUU—

Welp... you were looking for an October Surprise and October says "hold my beer". Clown Emperor Bleach Trump and First Lady Melania hydroxychloroquine Trump have tested positive, with the Donster being taken to Walter Reed for treatment, following hot on the heels of one his senior advisors, and a big face-to-face, mask-off event for GOP donors, and the president of Notre Dame University who attended the Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett, and... oh, FUUUUUU—

Christ, that's what — three or four potential "super-spreader" events with that gang in the past two weeks or so? For that matter, everywhere that sonofabitch goes is a super-spreader event. Dude's a super-duper-spreader.

Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow is asking those of us who can't afford the kind of healthcare Trump is getting to pray for the guy who's supposed to be an Existential Threat™ and a Russian Asset™ and an Enemy Of Democracy™ and The Worst President Ever™, and getting her snippy little ass shredded.

The U.S. Left — Lord love 'em — have been throwing everything they had
at that bunch and couldn't make a dent, and the bastards end up being  brought down by a friggin' virus... y'know, kinda like the end of War Of The Worlds.

I'm not gonna lie to y'all. I can't pretend I'm not enjoying this.

Batman: The Animated Series' Artbook Creator on Being an Artist During COVID-19



Batman: The Animated Series' Artbook Creator on Being an Artist During COVID-19

Alexandra Bowman

We sat down with Justin Erickson, the creative director behind the anticipated "Batman: The Animated Series: The Phantom City Creative Collection," to talk about how he creates art and works with other artists during this unprecedented time. "Batman: The Animated Series: The Phantom City Creative Collection" will be released on October 6th. Preorder your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Batman-Animate... Learn about Phantom City Creative here: https://phantomcitycreative.bigcartel... Follow @PhantomCityCreative here: https://www.instagram.com/phantomcity...