BLOG

We just received the following e-mail from Ryan Standfest, editor/publisher of Rotland Press + Comic Works:

Mr. Tom Neely reported this morning that while traveling across the border to Canada to attend this year's TCAF, the five copies of the black humor comics anthology BLACK EYE that he was carrying with him to the festival were confiscated/seized by a customs agent on the grounds that the material in BLACK EYE was "obscene."

According to Neely:

"... They took 'em. I tried to get them to just ship them back to me at home, but they said they were required to send it to Ottawa for review... if they found the material to be 'obscene' they would take 'further action.' I asked what 'further action' meant and he said they would just destroy them. Or there is a chance they might ship them back to me.

"It was the page of Onsmith's gags that they first saw... I tried to tell them that it was 'parody' and 'humor' and the rest of the book had essays on the history of dark humor... the customs guy was really cool and understanding, but he said he just couldn't let them through. I just hope 'further action' doesn't involve being arrested the next time I try to cross the border."

More details to come as we learn them.

Good morning, folks. A couple new things are up for you this morning.

Rob Clough reviews the second issue of Dunja Jankovic's Habitat.

Also, Mike Dawson's podcast, TCJ Talkies (did I already tell you that Dan came up with that name? I think I'm gonna be reminding you often), is now available on iTunes. You can find it here.

And because Dan decided to talk about Viking movies yesterday instead of providing links, I should announce that Shaenon Garrity turned in her inaugural webcomics column yesterday. Check it out.

Elsewhere on the internet:

The New Yorker's Richard Brody recently weighed in on a minor kefuffle in film-crit world (more here), and while I don't really have any interest in discussing the topic at hand, Brody did bring up something relevant to comics criticism:

At newspapers and magazines, as here at The New Yorker, classical-music critics and pop-music critics are usually different people. With movies, things are different: David Denby and Anthony Lane write about “The Dilemma,” “Source Code,” and “Toy Story 3”; about “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” and “Meek’s Cutoff”; and about the life work of Robert Bresson and Abbas Kiarostami. Though analogies between the arts are inexact, the boundaries between classical and pop cinema are as fluid as are the interests and curiosities of critics who do the cinema justice. D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Sergei Eisenstein are artistic peers, regardless of the differences in their cultural heritage and context, and one of the great discoveries made by critics—the young French writers at Cahiers du Cinéma in the nineteen-fifties, the inventors and advocates of the politique des auteurs (or “auteur theory”) who are now better known as the filmmakers of the French New Wave—is the recognition that some of cinema’s most popular latter-day artists, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks, are not merely skillful showmen but classical artists, akin to the writers and painters of the grand tradition, despite working in popular styles and genres in the employ of a mass-media industry.

Comics, too (or at least modern comics), has something of the same "problem"—it began as (and remains?) a popular art form, and as a result of that, many of the most historically and aesthetically important comics are not sufficiently "serious" for more respectability-minded contemporary critics and artists. This is partly where the vitality—and for some, the embarrassment—of comics come from. It's an issue that permeates nearly everything written about the form, and won't be going away during our lifetimes. I have mixed feelings about how film critics have handled their version of the same issue, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Related?

No-Prize to the first reader who can guess why this story makes me sad.

Pete Hamill briefly discusses the comics in this pretty great interview about Osama bin Laden, 9/11, and his life in newspapers.

Nice Daniel Clowes interview at the Wall Street Journal.

The Chilean critic Ariel (How to Read Donald Duck) Dorfman offers his own somewhat idiosyncratic take on the idiotic-on-all-sides Superman-renounces-his-citizenship story. (Thanks, RB.)

Pretty astonishing figure for this Dark Knight Returns splash page at auction yesterday: $448 thousand! Is that the most money ever paid for original comic art?

Not comics: John Coltrane doodles.

And don't forget: depending on where you live, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day.

First of all, I didn't invite Tim. Apparently I promised I would, but then got it in my head that he didn't want to go, and so I went to the press screening of Thor by myself. I wore 3-D glasses. I chewed gum. The popcorn line was too long, so there was no popcorn.

Thor! It was supposed to be good. It's not. It's not unwatchable like those two Fantastic Four movies, but it's pretty lame. Here's the deal (oh, right, SPOILER ALERT!): Thor is arrogant and is banished from Asgard to New Mexico, where he is rescued by Jane Foster and co. Natalie Portman plays Jane like a ditzy schoolgirl, but she doesn't have much to work with, so it's not her fault. She was good in Black Swan, though! Anyhow, Loki conspires to take over Asgard, blah blah blah, The Destroyer is sent to Earth to kill Thor, who recovers his hammer just in time to beat him, and then return to Asgard to beat Loki. S.H.I.E.L.D. is in the film, as is one Avenger, and there are allusions to Bruce Banner, and of course, Samuel L. Jackson makes an appearance. Oh, and there is tons of father/son/brother stuff that seems like an attempt at seriousness but rings hollow because we have nothing invested in the relationships. (Note to screenwriters: You have to set up the relationship with some backstory before ending it. Otherwise it's just a plot mechanism. Which is the point. Sorry I brought it up.) The end.

Phew. Now look, I have no attachment to these characters, though I certainly like Jack Kirby's Thor, and also Walt Simonson's, and the recent Matt Fraction issues were a hoot. It's not like I was looking for some perfect version of Thor and co., but an entertaining movie would be nice. It seems to me the best thing you can do with this stuff is make it grand and colorful and cosmic. Also, as a friend pointed out, Thor is kinda girly with his blond do and floppy garb. I mean, he's a hippy dude with a hammer. But here he's a muscle dude with no discernible charisma and not an ounce of femininity. One of the running jokes in the film (because, post-Iron Man, there have to be running jokes—which becomes a problem when no one in the movie has any comedic timing) is that Thor is soooooo hot.

So anyway, the biggest problem (aside from the above, which are big problems, but ones that can be solved with a toke or two if you were so inclined) is that the whole thing looks blah, and this cannot be solved with a toke. Or even a bong hit. Needless to say, no one took our Comics Comics Contest seriously. The colors are all dull bronzes, concrete grays, and muddy greens. The rainbow bridge has no rainbow, but rather seems more like a flickering data-stream from the Matrix. The Asgardian architecture, so nuttily psychedelic in the old comics, is here more like Frank Gehry on steroids. And the costumes are, as per usual with these things, trying to be "realistic." They're indistinguishable from Game of Thrones, which is indistinguishable from Lord of the Rings, etc. All this "realism" has worn thin. What happened to color? Also, dudes, the 3-D makes the movie look worse. Was it added later? Must've been. Because of all the dimensional layers the fight scenes are very difficult to understand, all the stuff on earth is hard to "read," and the tones are all darkened. Bad idea. Cameron had it right with the only-slightly-better-because-it-knew-it-was-silly Avatar: Bright fucking colors and wide shots! The only good thing to look at in Thor was Destroyer, and that's probably because it's pretty much exactly Jack Kirby's design, he's supposed to be metallic (so the gray is OK), and the scale (Destroyer = Biiiig) works.

And so, with nothing much to look at... well... there's not much left. Our protagonists are dull; our plot is rote. The only bright spot in the movie is Stellan Skarsgard as a scientist and mentor to Portman. My favorite movie with Skarsgard remains The Glass House, in which he plays an evil guy in an awesome glass house who adopts and then tries to kill Leelee Sobieski for her money. Skarsgard always looks like he's slightly drunk and about to hit on you, your girlfriend, and your cousin. And that totally works. It's entertaining. He's the same here: A scientist of no particular purpose, he just kinda looks on and smirks, dispenses advice, and seem immune to Thor's hotness. He's more focused on the waitress at the diner. Or he is in my mind.

Oh, Stan Lee makes an appearance, too. Jack Kirby, who co-created the comic book with Lee but really built the "property" and invented the look and mythology of the thing (that's pretty well established now) gets a "special thanks" at the very end of the credits (and I mean the very end), along with Simonson, and a few others. [UPDATE: Heidi points out the Lee, Kirby and Lieber get co-creator creds at the beginning of the credit roll -- I must've blinked] Nice! I wouldn't expect much more from Marvel, and won't sour this edition of the DDSMC by dwelling, but I will gently guide you again to this article by Michael Dean on Marvel's treatment of Kirby and this interview (parts 1 and 2) by Mark Hebert from 1969. Hey guys! Remember Jack Kirby! No use shouting. No one is listening.

Anyhow, assuming this edition of DDSMC won't get me banned from press screenings, I'll be with you all summer long from one Super Movie to the next. Maybe I'll invite Tim next time. Maybe.

This morning at the Journal, Rob Clough reveals his top twenty-five minicomics of 2010 (and throws in a few broadsheets for good measure).

Hayley Campbell files a personal report from the international comics festival of Barcelona, featuring appearances from her father (Eddie Campbell) and Kurt Busiek. Apparently zombies are kind of big in Spain.

Tom De Haven reviews Joe Ollmann's Mid-Life ("attention ought now to be paid").

Lots of Chester Brown coverage out there (the Journal's will begin next week).

Brad Mackay wrote a thoughtful review of Paying For It at the Globe and Mail. (Don't miss the panel-by-panel visual examination of Brown's style.) Mackay adds a little more background here.

Our own Sean Rogers reviews the book over at The Walrus. Sometimes I think the best writers about comics are all Canadian.

It is interesting to me that Mackay (like many of the reviewers so far) draws a clear separation between the comics section of Brown's book and the commentary that follows it. ("I expect most people will judge this book on the comics, not the commentary, and these are some of the best comics of Brown’s career.") In my reading of the book, I wasn't able to separate the two so cleanly. I am not talking about the obvious political dimensions of the book (which advocates for decriminalizing prostitution, if you just logged on to the comics internet for the first time)—most adult readers are able to appreciate material morally alien to them to one degree or another. I just mean that the notes so inform the rest of the book (and the character of "Chester Brown," among others) that it seems to me a distortion of the book to divide the parts too cleanly.

Somewhat related: Ed Park contributes an excellent essay touching on Brown's frequent use of notes throughout his career, and particularly in Paying For It, for a new website called the Toronto Standard. If you are the type of reader who doesn't like to know how a book ends beforehand, you might want to bookmark it for now. But don't forget to come back later. This is one of the best things about the book I've seen so far.

Nick Gazin's latest comic-book review column for Vice is up, and includes short interviews with Gilbert Hernandez, Johhny Ryan, Michael DeForge, and Benjamin Marra. (The Gilbert H. interview is the longest and best.)

I'm gearing up for TCAF this weekend and have been tricked into moderating a panel Friday night with Chester Brown, Seth, Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware. All men who are smarter, more successful and more liked than I am. I'm sure they'll go easy on me, right guys? Uh, guys? I'm working through my fear. How? By working on TCJ, of course.

So! I should note that you have days, or perhaps only hours until the vaunted TCJ archive goes behind ye ol' pay wall. Right now we're up to issue 68. Might I suggest having a peek at issue 66? Some fine Scholz and Groth material in there.

On to some links:

Over at The Panelists there's a bit about young Hugh Hefner's early life as a wannabe cartoonist.

Here's a short but tantalizing article about the comics publisher Lev Gleason (Crime Does Not Pay, among others), written by his grandnephew, who is also working on a full length biography. (via PF) This connects back to earlier posts by Kent Worcester, and including some of this material, over here.

Harry Mendryk looks at Jack Kirby's comics about the mob. I love that Kirby's career is so vast that you can look at not only how he treats a given subject over a thirty-year span, but also track the changes in the medium itself as he does so. Fun.

I can't believe I missed this exhibition of Charles Schulz love letters. No excuse. Jeez.

Here's an interview with cartoonist and historian Brian Walker, someone you don't see interviewed that much, but has certainly lived the history.

Welcome back to the working week. Lots of new stuff for you this week and month. Thanks for reading us so far, and bearing with the occasional bump in the road. (Like the continuing comments wrinkles -- it will get fixed soon, we swear.) May should be the best month yet.

New on the site:

Sean Rogers writes about the great Kim Deitch, via the portfolio published by La Mano.

Frank Santoro turns in his latest Layout Workbook, this time focusing on the format of the late & lamented MOME.

And Kristian Williams returns to the site with a review of Mike Howlett's Weird World of Eerie Publications.

Elsewhere:

Drew Friedman talks about the book covers of his father—the brilliantly funny Bruce Jay Friedman. If you haven't read him before, you really need to.

Speaking of books, The Strand in New York City has invited various people to "curate" collections of recommended titles, including John Waters, Maira Kalman, and Art Spiegelman.

The infamous-in-some-quarters critic and former TCJ message board habitué Domingos Isabelhino compares Peanuts to Percy Crosby's Skippy.

Chris Mautner attempts to sum up Joe Sacco.

Only very tangentially comics: A typically oddball interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Sorry for the bare-bones nature of today's blog post. A certain little girl would not stop crying if she wasn't being held, and this particular entry had to be written with one hand.

Welcome to the weekend.

On the site today:

The first installment of Bart Beaty's monthly column, The Dr. Is In. Bart will be writing about academic publishing around comics -- he kicks it off with Hillary Chute's recent book.

And Sean Rogers weighs in with a review of Dan Clowes' Mr. Wonderful.

Your daily links...

This went around the Twitter-sphere yesterday afternoon -- it's pretty great. Cartoonists talking about the tools of their craft in a promotional video for TCAF.

I've never been to the FLUKE comics fest, but it sounds like it was fun, and I like spending time in the South, so...

John Adcock takes a look at Bill Blackbeard's non-fiction and pulp writing.

Michael Barrier has been posting some great old interviews on his site. Here's one with animator and funny animal cartoonist Lynn Karp.

J. Caleb Mozzocco looks at Matt Howarth's new book, The Downsized. Howarth is one of those cartoonists who remains pretty much unexamined, and he sure was prolific throughout the 1980s and early '90s.

I enjoy looking at the sporadically updated Frank Bellamy Checklist blog. Bellamy is a standard bearer for ye' ol' stiff upper lip British realist comic, which I have some weird weakness for looking at. Anyhow, this latest installment has some images that would not seem out of place on a 1970s Brian Eno record cover.

And finally, the old pro Murphy Anderson -- the cleanest surface around. Here's an oldie.

Two new features for you this morning.

First, we have Matt Seneca's entertaining and searching interview with Shaky Kane and David Hine, regarding the collection of The Bulletproof Coffin that came out this week.

Second, we introduce an audio component to our multimedia empire: TCJ Talkies, a new biweekly podcast series hosted by Mike Dawson. (Dan came up with the name, I hasten to add.) The first episode's guest is world-class ranter Evan Dorkin.

And if you haven't checked in to our post gathering tributes to Bill Blackbeard in a while, it is probably worth looking at again. We have been adding new material all week, including writing from Gary Groth, Michael Tisserand, Peter Maresca, Trina Robbins, and updated thoughts from Jeet Heer.

Your Daily Links:

Kim Thompson has been working on a big upcoming collection of Joost Swarte material for Fantagraphics, and has two great posts on the translation issues involved.

Robot 6 found a striking early Charles Schulz strip going up for bid at Heritage Auctions, which features characters eerily similar to Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Peanuts before Peanuts.

There's a good short interview with Shaun Tan at literary website The Millions.

I can't remember why I saved this link to Tucker Stone's most recent roundup of superhero comics "reviews." Maybe just because we haven't linked to his blog before? Anyway, for those still caught up in the weekly capes grind (or who enjoy following it from a discreet distance), Tucker's stuff is a constant sharp reminder that doing so isn't much more worthwhile than just burning your money.

Bob Temuka compares the 3-D movie fad to the original graphic novel boom, and doesn't have very kind words about either.

Charles Kochman at Abrams (the Smithsonian collection's publisher) offers his own praise for Bill Blackbeard. (via)

Finally, I leave you with an old quote from Philip Roth making the internet rounds. I don't want to put my finger on exactly why, but it somehow seems appropriate:

"Had I been away twenty years on a desert island, perhaps the change in intelligent society that would have most astonished me upon my return is the animated talk about second-rate movies by first-rate people which has almost displaced discussion of any such length or intensity about a book, second-rate, first-rate or tenth-rate. Talking about movies in the relaxed, impressionistic way that movies invite being talked about is not only the unliterate man’s literary life, it's become the literary life of the literate as well."

Hello again. Here's the run down:

* Tom Spurgeon has a great round-up of thirteen tributes to Bill Blackbeard. I second his recommendation to race over to read Dylan Williams' fantastic post, which contains the longest interview with Blackbeard ever published.

* So Gary Panter (with Chris Byrne) has curated an exhibition on Zap opening on May 12 in NYC. I've seen the original pages selected: it's a killer show. Great generational combo.

* Kim Thompson takes us inside an adventure in translating. Also: Joost Swarte book back on schedule.

* Here's an incredibly enjoyable con report over at The Mindless Ones. Frank and Jog: Meet your British counterparts.

* Via Top Shelf, the much-talked-about French graphic novel by Ludovic Debeurme, Lucille, has a preview up at Pen American Center.

* At HiLobrow: A selected series of posts by Adam McGovern on various aspects of pop culture, including some comics of interest.

* A random note: I know this is conflict of interest and blah blah, but damn the new Hate Annual 9 is good. Bagge knows his characters so well, and he never goes for the easy gag. Just great suburban American comedy. Also, if I had some dough, I'd race over to Scott Eder's site and buy some originals by Bagge. There are some killer pages on there.

On the site today:

The second installment of Richard Gehr's Know Your New Yorker Cartoonists, featuring Gahan Wilson! Ol' man Gehr is on a roll with these, having just completed a great interview with Roz Chast. Stay tuned for his monthly dispatches.

And coming up tomorrow: Matt Seneca contributes a great interview with Shaky Kane and David Hine on the occasion of their newly released book, Bulletproof Coffin. It's fantastic to see Kane, in particular, getting some attention from the general comics universe. Just five years ago Frank Santoro was a lone voice in the wilderness talking about his work, and it was some effort to track him down for a Comics Comics cover feature. Always a deeply idiosyncratic artist, Kane seemed, well, maybe lost to history or something -- his work residing primarily in back issues of Deadline and a handful of small press British comics. Anyhow, sounds like we're going to get to see some more, so that's a good thing.

Okay, first, if you haven't yet made time to read the obituaries and tributes for Bill Blackbeard we published yesterday, written by R.C. Harvey, Jeet Heer, and others, you really should do so at your earliest convenience. It would be difficult to overstate how great a debt anyone interested enough in comics to be reading this site owes to Blackbeard. It is easy to take for granted the state of things as they are, and think that it's entirely natural for bookstore and library shelves to be groaning with beautiful archival reprints of classic comic strips, but if not for Blackbeard, it is very unlikely we would be living in such a world. It is both frightening and motivating to think about how much can come down to one dedicated person. (Two off-site tributes worth reading come from Dylan Williams and Tom Spurgeon.)

New to the Journal today are Dan's interview with Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell, regarding their upcoming Alex Toth book, Rob Clough's review of Noah Van Sciver's Blammo, and the latest column from Joe McCulloch, with the highlights of the week for newly published comics—and another in-depth look at late Steve Ditko.

Elsewhere, lots of links this morning:

Timothy Callahan has been reading old issues of the Journal and getting inspired. You can too.

Adrian Tomine is selling art to raise funds for Japanese disaster relief.

For those buried under a rock, new art from Bill Watterson has surfaced.

Ben Katchor brings us drawing-as-writing from both Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky! (In appreciation for these great finds, I ought to link to Katchor's recent interview with the A.V. Club.)

The film writer Richard Harland Smith interviews one of the great comics talkers, Drew Friedman.

James Romberger just posted an interview with Gene Colan. As you may know, Colan's health situation isn't very good right now. You can learn one way to help here.

The Point has published a nice, thoughtful review-essay based on Chris Ware's latest volume of Acme Novelty Library.

The popular literary weblog HTMLGIANT does the same for CF's City-Hunter.

Robert Boyd organized a show in Houston featuring the work of Jim Woodring and Marc Bell. He revisits it in words and video. Both artists (and JW's famous giant pen) make appearances.

I imagine this must be a very common experience, but having a kid recently, and being "forced" (she isn't that strong) to read the same books over and over again nightly, has given me immense new respect for the artistry of figures like Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak. Sendak was feeling ill when he granted a Philadelphia reporter a brief, bracing set of quotes.

I'm very sad over the passing of Bill Blackbeard. My experiences with Bill Blackbeard are much the same as many other people's: I "met" him through his books, which provided the best exposure I had to comic strips. His emphasis on personal taste -- which he confirmed to me the one and only time I spoke with him -- as a guide for shaping foundational history was an inspiration as well. I mean, he emphasized the good stuff. I'm sure there was plenty I'd disagree with him on, but he would fight for difficult strips -- like The Bungle Family -- and also advocated for the sheer poetry of, say, Roy Crane. His tenacity and taste were formative for all of us. And, as Jeet convincingly argues, without Blackbeard comic strip history as we know it would more or less not exist. What Blackbeard did for the medium goes past anything I can really imagine: I think it is without question that by virtue of saving and then sharing its history, he was one on the most important men in the history of comics. Period.

R.C. Harvey has written an obituary, and Jeet Heer an appreciation. Let's honor Blackbeard's memory by continuing his good work.

--------

Just a handful of links for you today:

I really enjoyed this Douglas Wolk pieces on Howard Chaykin, which comes from a reading of the recently released (and highly recommended) book Howard Chaykin: Conversations. Chaykin is, in a lot of ways, the last of his kind -- an autodidact who will slog through a shitty script because he felt like drawing horses that month. Like his mentor Gil Kane, he produces excellent work in a shitty field. He also did create a couple of pretty great graphic novels, to boot. Really worth reading.

Tom Spurgeon has a typically excellent interview with Joe Daly over at The Comics Reporter. I'm a fan of Daly's Dungeon Quest series.

I completely relate to Dylan Williams' assessment of his recent convention experiences. Sigh.

And, randomly, from another conversation, Jay Babcock reminded me of this interview he conducted with Alejandro Jodorowsky that covers his comics work. Also, an excuse to link to this piece on his collaborations with Moebius on his aborted Dune film, and a blog with his 1960s psych comics.

Pascal Girard takes a somewhat melancholy taxi ride in his final diary entry this morning, and it is similarly bittersweet to bid him farewell. How did the week fly by so quickly?

Katie Haegele brings us a short profile of the young Swedish cartoonist Naomi Nowak.

The great Tom De Haven returns, with a review of Jerry Robinson's re-released history, The Comics.

And Jeet Heer makes the case for S. Clay Wilson as the central figure of underground comics in his latest column. (Incidentally, congratulations are in order to Jeet, to whom a daughter was born this week. He is actually the second Journal contributor to father a child since the site relaunched. Maybe there's something in the ink...)

A few quick orders of business: 1. Some readers reported having trouble with pre-orders of issue 301 on Amazon yesterday. We are aware of the problem, and looking into it. In the meantime, we apologize for the confusion. 2. Some of you may have noticed that the comments are a little wonky, with reader comments sometimes appearing over in the left "recent comments" sidebar on the front page, but not underneath the story in question—and vice versa. We are working on this one as well. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be happening all that frequently, but we still hope to have it fixed soon. Thanks for your patience.

Off-site:

I liked Joe Ollmann's Mid-Life better than he does (maybe it helps to read it? the art definitely isn't the main attraction), but Nick Gazin's latest review column for Vice is pretty good, and opens with a nice rant on the sad sack foundation of the funnybook business. I think the Chris Ware stuff here seems off, too, as I don't remember him ever idealizing himself—I may be forgetting something, but the only "Chris Ware" in his comics that I recall turns him into a lecherous, pretentious, and pony-tailed high school art teacher. Gazin's reviews will be too sloppy (& occasionally too fake-dumb) for some of you, but here are the things I like about them: 1. They are funny. 2. They are unpredictable. 3. They reflect a seeming fearlessness about who will be pissed off. 4. I strongly agree—and strongly disagree—with at least one thing in his reviews each time, and they're often points I haven't seen articulated by anyone before.

On the exact opposite side of the writing-about-comics spectrum, Neil Cohn has discovered comics-related lectures available at the Semiotics Institute Online that may be of interest to more academically oriented readers.

Friday Fun Time: If Joe McC's recent essay got you interested in watching Frank Miller's The Spirit (and I hope for your sake that it didn't, because that movie will drain you of all self-respect—no offense, Joe), then (via Sean Howe) the script Miller wrote for a never-completed film version of Elektra has turned up. It seems to be the antediluvian Miller, too.

That's right, muckraking tyro Gary Groth has turned in his first dispatch for the new TCJ, and it's a doozy -- a lengthy refutation of Jim Shooter's recent forays into autobiography. Note that the episode Gary is recounting here (i.e. Jack Kirby's treatment by Marvel) remains one of the most important moments in contemporary comic book history, one that again exposed the shameful history behind so many "beloved" properties, and the complicity of an industry that still needs them to keep afloat. Given the two movies coming out this summer, anyone interested in pop culture would be wise to check out the current piece. In the coming months we will also be posting an older TCJ interview with Kirby, as well as other coverage.

Anyhow, that said, onto the links:

* Joanna Draper Carlson has a few more thoughts on Tokyopop.

* This slipped by me: Matt Seneca writing about Chip Kidd and Art Spiegelman's Jack Cole book from 2001. I don't agree with all of Matt's conclusions (especially the bit about the best duos of the 2000s), but it's a thoughtful piece on an important and, at the time, controversial book. Now, I gotta say, their choice to reprint the comic book as "objects" looks prescient (and good) -- but at the time I remember much hand-wringing over the interventions performed and image types used. It remains a damn good book.

* Over on Hooded Utilitarian, our own Ryan Holmberg has commented on Ng Suat Tong's criticism of Tatsumi. Makes for interesting reading.

* HiLobrow is running a series of essays about... oh, I can't summarize it: "using Battlestar Galactica as a lens through which to view museums’ challenge to create and retain relevancy within a difficult economic climate." I'm enjoying this series, and since TCJ used to have a Star Trek column, and even covered Battlestar Galactica back in the day, it's all fair game. Plus! We comics types should have a more informed dialogue about museum culture. Oh look at me, I'm all preachy today. Ugh, shut up already, Nadel!

* Via Forbidden Planet: An audio interview with British comics greats Pat Mills (the writer responsible for some of the best and strangest SF comics) and Bryan Talbot.

We have a ton of new material for you today. We're gonna have to slow down soon, I think. Geez.

First up, a one-week-only preview of Shigeru Mizuku’s first book in English-language translation, his 1973 WWII classic, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths. As Dan writes in his online intro, Mizuki is a "giant of manga," and this is reputed to be one of his greatest works. I haven't read the untranslated material, but this book is strong stuff, with a tone that veers between comic absurdity and violent anger at loss and stupidity. Read the excerpt here.

J. Caleb Mozzocco brings in his first contribution to the new Journal, a feature on Columbus, Ohio's just-about-to-premiere stage adaptation of Joshua Cotter's Skyscrapers of the Midwest.

The internet agrees: Pascal Girard is killing it with his Cartoonist's Diary entries this week. Today is day three, with plenty more MoCCA madness & cameo appearances.

On the review front, we have two new ones for you. First, our own editorial coordinator Kristy Valenti reviews the much-anticipated Lychee Light Club. Second, Sean T. Collins brings us his take on Gilbert Hernandez's Love from the Shadows. We hadn't planned on running two reviews of the book, but an accident of scheduling occurred: Sean actually turned in his review a few weeks before we published Tom De Haven's very different piece on the same subject. In any case, this is undoubtedly going to be the kind of book that provokes strong reactions among readers, and our error of planning turned out to be kind of fortuitous.

Finally, we're entering the eighties in the archives, with eleven new issues (52 through 62) up and ready to read. We're into prime-era Journal now, folks, days and days — if not weeks and months— of stellar reading material. If you've fallen behind, make some time to check these out before it's too late. Remember: once the team in Seattle puts the paywall in place, only subscribers will be able to access these issues.

In the meantime, we will try to identify some of the archival highlights for you in future posts, to point out some of the best material. For now, know that the Blood & Thunder columns are reliably entertaining, an that issue 53 has a rather famous interview with Harlan Ellison. Google it if you haven't heard.

Oh, and non-Journal-related (unless you count Dan's upcoming ramblings on dumb comic-book movies), Sean Howe unearthed an article about one film adaptation that was blessedly never released: Nancy: The Movie. A taste of what we narrowly missed: "But wait. Nancy won't be a kid. She'll be 35 and a record company executive - 'No. 2 at a record label,' said [producer Peter] Muller from his New York office. "'She'll have the same hair and polka dot dress, but she'll be intelligent, sensitive and driven. She realizes she can have it all.'"

Also, Kevin Czap reports on every comic shop in the Cleveland area. I wish someone would do this for all the major cities. It took me years of living in New York before I even heard of Roger's Time Machine. I could have wasted a lot more money if I'd known about it sooner.

Welcome to Tuesday. Or as I know it, the day after Passover, when I eat bread anyway.

On the site today: Pascal Girard's Cartoonist's Diary Day 2, this time starring Joe Ollman.

Now, onto the day's headlines...

This lengthy piece on The Atlantic about book publishing since 1984 does some great history and also entombs it.

Rosebud Archives is releasing a sequence of Percy Crosby's Skippy accompanied by an expose on Crosby's sad decline, which, at least in the press materials, is positioned as a mob/political takedown of a patriotic American. Should be interesting because of Crosby's notoriously right-wing politics and, more crucially, due to his overlooked, virtuosic talent.

Man of the moment George R.R. Martin on comic books. At the NY Times. Yes, I watched Game of Thrones on Sunday night because, well, I don't know why. I think I like Richard Corben's version more (sorry, Sean!).

Robert Boyd (an upcoming contributor to this site) is curating a two-person show in Houston featuring Marc Bell and Jim Woodring. It's a rather ingenious pairing -- two drawing and narrative based fantasists, both perfectionist draftsman driven to very different results.

Over on Facebook, Jay Lynch is posting some great artifacts, including this killer 1965 collaboration with Art Spiegelman.

And in truly odd comics news, did you know about this funky conflict with Dilbert's Scott Adams? Hard to ignore, given that he/it is a cultural phenomenon. Anyhow, Adams was caught posting on various forums posing as his own biggest fan, and he's since posted a response on his own web site. Check out the Gawker article first, follow the links to Adams' pretty funny postings, and then enjoy his angry response. Good times, entertainment lovers!

Good morning. First things first: The Strand has posted video of the Comics Journal panel that was held there on April 8th, in which Dan and I asked Gary Groth and Kim Deitch various questions. Here is part one:

Parts two through four (and related Strandicon videos) can be found here.

Lots of new stuff on the site. First, the latest installment of Frank Santoro's pretty amazing Layout Workbook series went up yesterday. If you haven't been following along, and are either an artist or anyone else interested in the formal side of cartooning, I couldn't more strongly recommend going back and starting from the beginning.

This morning, Ken Parille brings us a new interview with Ivan Brunetti, whose cult classic textbook Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice has just been republished.

Finally, Pascal Girard has graciously agreed to be the latest artist to contribute a "Cartoonist's Diary" to the site, and today brings his debut post. (This is the first delivered in cartoon form.)

It's been a tough day on the New Jersey Turnpike, so let's go to other news:

Tokyopop is closing down its manga line. Not long ago, this company and others like it were sometimes pointed to as the future of comics publishing. I suppose they still might be.

Frank M. Young and Paul C. Tumey address Bill Everett's Atlas work in typically exhaustive fashion.

Paul Gravett interviews the great Italian cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti (also the guest on a recent episode of Inkstuds).

Which reminds me: By way of reviewing an excellent history of Italian comics, Craig Fischer points to one of the more lackluster categories of Eisner nominations. Whether or not you agree that it makes sense to add an academic writing award, good work is definitely going overlooked.

Your daily bread:

*On the site today: Hayley Campbell on Winschluss's Pinocchio.

(Chain) Links:

*I just hope somehow Jim Shooter gets blamed even more for this. Just because that would increase his record.

*Everyone should be tuning in to The Comics Reporter to follow the L'Assocation news, since we've yet to get it together to cover the story. It's a big one, and Tom is hosting the best English-language coverage.

*There's another new Steve Ditko book coming out: Act 8 Making Lucky 13, Thirteen, Ditko's 32s. What a streak.

*Absolutely one of the best Mort Meskin stories I've ever seen.

And, the wind-up:

Every so often we'll present an oddity that comes across our desk; this email was passed on to us by one Gary Groth, an idealistic young "comics scholar" based in a ramshackle house in Seattle.

Dear Comics Scholar:

Matt and I would like to invite your contribution to a new anthology we are editing for ABC-CLIO called Icons of the American Comic Book. The project will include 100 entries spanning the breadth of comics culture, including the characters, creators, titles, and other facets that have achieved iconic status with the American consciousness. For your contribution, we can offer you an honorarium:

* $90 for each of the entries designated to run approximately 5,000 words
* $50 for each of the entries designated to run approximately 2,750 words
We are looking at an initial deadline of *August 1, 2011*.

Our aim with Icons of the American Comic Book will be to provide fresh insights into the significance of some of the most widely known and fascinating popular culture icons of the 20th and 21st centuries. Each entry will discuss the iconic significance of its subject and should be both more detailed and more entertaining than the conventional encyclopedia entry. More than simply character or creator biographies, the entries will provide in-depth explorations of the icons as products of and an influence upon American culture, informed by scholarly research.

Below is our list of entries (a strikethrough indicates an entry that is already assigned). If you are interested in contributing, please let us know what your primary as well as any secondary preferences would be, but do keep in mind that we will need your initial draft(s) by Aug. 1.  Along with each entry you request include *a brief statement of your qualifications* to write on the subject.

Please respond off-List to [EMAIL REDACTED]

Our publishers have stipulated that we should consider our primary audience to be students doing research. To that end, each entry must include a bibliography and one (or more) sidebars of 50-300 words each. (These considerations must be included within the word counts.)

We’re also planning to invite some guest contributors to 1) read and comment on the draft entries, 2) contribute a sidebar, or 3) even collaborate on the entry itself on several key entries. For example, comic book writer and editor Mark Waid (/Superman: Birthright/) might be enticed to act as a consultant on the Superman entry. Each guest’s role will depend on your comfort and willingness to work in such an arrangement.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you soon,

Randy and Matt

Entries of approximately 5,000 words

Archie Andrews

Barks, Carl

Batman

Captain America

Crumb, Robert

DC Comics

Dell Comics

EC Comics

Eisner, Will

Gaiman, Neil

Joker, The

Kane, Bob (and collaborators)

Kirby, Jack

Lee, Stan

Marvel Comics

Moore, Alan

Siegel, Jerry & Shuster, Joe

Spider-Man

Spiegelman, Art

Superman

Wonder Woman

Entries of approximately 2,750 words

Adams, Neal
American Splendor
Arkham Asylum
Aquaman
Black Panther
Blade
Bone
Captain Marvel
Classics Illustrated
Clowes, Daniel
Comic-Con International
Contract with God, A
Crime Does Not Pay
Dark Horse
Ditko, Steve
Doctor Doom
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Fanboy
Fantagraphics
Fantastic Four
Flash
From Hell
Green Lantern
Green Lantern & Green Arrow
Gonick, Larry

good girls
Heavy Metal
Hellboy
Hulk
Image Comics
Iron Man
Jack Kirby’s Fourth World
Katy Keene
Killing Joke, The
Kubert, Joe
Kurtzman, Harvey
Lex Luthor
Little Lulu
Mad
Magneto
Maus
McCloud, Scott
McFarlane, Todd
Milestone Comics
Miller, Frank
MLJ/Archie Publications
Morrison, Grant
Mr. Natural
Palestine
Plastic Man
Pogo
Punisher, The
RAW
Richie Rich
Robin
Romance comics

Rorschach
Ross, Alex
Sacco, Joe
Sandman
Scott Pilgrim
Sheena
Sin City
Sgt. Rock
Spawn
Steranko, James
Supergirl
Swamp Thing
Tales from the Crypt
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Thing
Uncle Scrooge
Warren, Jim

Watchmen
Wertham, Fredric
Wizard
Wolverine
X-Men

Zap

The jokes just write themselves here. Nothing I can write would be sillier than the list itself. Fave entry: "Bob Kane (and collaborators)". Every so often I think, "gee, books on comics could never be as bad as they used to be", and then I'm reminded that in some ways it's worse because so few people have actually learned anything. It's like parallel universes exist. The future: We are fucked. Wizard,  X-Men, (whiiinne: "no Yellow Kid?")  Zap. Ka-Boom.

That line, spoken by one R. Gehr, was my favorite part of MoCCA. What does it refer to? Or Who? Who cares. It's just funny on 800 levels. Heidi MacDonald covers MoCCA here. My own report will appear... now! What is there to say? Let's see... Friday night was good at the Strand and Saturday night was drunken and fun at the TCJ launch party. Many people were there, including Boss Groth, a ton of artists (including Mazzucchelli, Burns, Girard, Evans, Ollmann, G. Bell, DeStefano, Stearn, Lewis, Newgarden, G. Wilson) many of our writers (among them: Rudick, Fry, Gehr, Howe, Gazin). And etc. We thank you all for coming out. And here are some pix:

During the day I sold books. Overwhelming trends seemed to be a sense of exhaustion, questions about the viability of a medium filled with young professionals with no place to go, and a decent amount of low-stakes, "networking" thrown in. EH!

Other links for you:

On Facebook: Fluid, perfect, and according to the artist, unpublished early 1970s drawings by the great Victor Moscoso make the best argument yet for getting a Facebook account. Also the best argument yet for never letting an artist control his own monograph: They always leave the best stuff out.

Good article on hidden art in animation, because we all know animation is not art. "JK."

On the site for most of you:

Sean T. Collins talks to Daniel Clowes about Mr. Wonderful; a new column by R. Fiore on Jacques Tardi and Ayn Rand.

MoCCA did Dan in, so I'm stepping in to deliver the news.

First, we are publishing frequent Journal contributor Matthias Wivel's first story for the new site: an in-depth interview with the French artist Fabrice Neaud. I was not previously familiar with his work, which is not easy to find in translation here, but still found this to be a fascinating conversation. We hope you will too.

In other Journal news, the panel discussion at the Strand Friday night seemed to go well, or at least well enough. It's hard to tell from the microphone side of the table. But Gary and Kim Deitch were both in fine form, and the audience seemed happy. My favorite part came the first time it was mentioned aloud that Dan and I had taken over the website, when I could have sworn I saw a giant light bulb literally appear over Kim's head—he had apparently been too good-natured to ask what we were doing there earlier.

Several people inquired beforehand about the possibility of the panel being recorded, and they should rest easy, because by my count there were at least three devices capturing the whole thing for posterity. Thanks to all of you who attended.

Elsewhere on the internet:

Drawn & Quarterly had a limited supply of Chester Brown's instantly infamous Paying for It at the MoCCA Festival, and there are already three reviews online—from Tom Spurgeon and TCJ.com contributors Chris Mautner and Sean T. Collins—all worth reading later, or now if you can't wait for the actual book. Following the reaction to Brown's book may well end up being almost as much fun as the work itself—which, incidentally, it seems like I may have enjoyed more wholeheartedly than any of these three writers. (Why do I feel creepy saying so?) Then again, I haven't needed to take a publicly stance on the more polemic aspect of the book, which is the hard part. We'll have more coverage of Brown on the site closer to the book's release date.

Bhob Stewart investigates (with a little help from Jay Lynch) the possible origins of the term "Hoo-Hah!," a bit of slang frequent readers of early Mad will remember well. Was Harvey Kurtzman influenced by T.S. Eliot? Considering the mutual admiration society Eliot set up with Groucho Marx (one of the comedian's letters to the poet can be read online), I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility.

Finally, via Tom Scioli, I learned of a Wired article that claims to have discovered a 1953 Otto Binder article that provided the secret inspiration for every nuclear-radiation-mutated superhero from Spider-Man to the X-Men. It's not true, unfortunately—the mutant superman has been around since at least the early '30s, when a writer named John Taine wrote a whole slew of "mutational romances." And Lewis Padgett's famous "Baldy" series of the 1940s, gathered in Mutant!, featured a race of persecuted bald telepaths, and provided an obvious reference for Professor X as well. But anyway.

Finally—Not (or at least only tangentially) Comics: Over at the great film site Mubi, our own Joe McCulloch writes about Frank Miller's The Spirit and Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch. Check it out.

The great Tim Kreider turns in an editorial/essay on the state of the cartooning profession. Despite a small amount of shared territory with a recent controversial Voice story (including a particular Ted Rall joke--it is a funny line, so I see why Rall likes to use it), this piece was written before that issue of the Voice was published. Not that it matters, since they're sufficiently different, but just so you know.

Also, Rob Clough contributes a review of the international survey anthology Gazeta.

Finally, of course, any Journal readers in the New York area tonight will want to come to the Strand bookstore, to see Gary Groth and Kim Deitch in discussion with Dan and myself about the magazine's history and legacy. It starts at seven, and comes after a full day of store appearances by cartoonists such as Ben Katchor, Jillian Tamaki, Pascal Girard, and Dash Shaw.

Elsewhere:

The 2011 Eisner Award nominations have been announced. It's going to take a little time to absorb the whole thing; there are definitely some good and deserving nominees in there, but a few surprising oversights as well. That's par for the course with awards all over, of course, but in comics, the whole thing sometimes seems especially perverse. More on this later, I am sure.

In news of more lasting importance, Bart Beaty sums up the latest state of the troubles at L'Association. Highly recommended.

Also on the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon reflects further on the Voice non-payment issue.

I don't think we've yet linked to this interview with Anders Nilsen yet.

And here's a very short Q&A with the Journal's debut diarist Vanessa Davis.

Hello there. We're looking forward to seeing you at The Strand Friday at 7 pm. Watch me and Tim grill Gary Groth, while Kim Deitch valiantly defends us against his taunts. It will be a ball. Bring your questions about arcane TCJ history and we (by we, I mean Gary) will attempt to answer them.

And now, your links for the day:

* I'm pretty sure this means that Frank Santoro has finally been tapped to star as Batman.

* Tom Devlin reports back from WonderCon. Tom looks healthier and more distinguished each year while I grow haggard. Is it Montreal? All those John Stanley comics? His loving partner and children? Oh, whatever. I don't like it. Not one bit.

* Burp the Twerp. Yes. A reason to go on.

* Dan Zettwoch almost makes me care about baseball via these awesome buttons.

* Over at the Village Voice we learn about comics and money. It's about as depressing as you think, but also oddly... incomplete. However, it provided a nifty handout for my Cartooning major students yesterday. D&Q snagged a since deleted response from Mimi Pond, which is priceless.

* Barely comics: Mark Newgarden alerted me that our beloved S.S. Adams novelty company building has gone up for sale. We visited it long ago, when there were still remnants of fake doggy do to be found. Hard to believe a place so beautiful gave the world such unrelenting mania.

On the site:

-Jeet Heer returns with more thoughts on race and comics.

See at MoCCA, though I'll be wearing my other hat.

New to the site: Hayley Campbell joins the Journal team with a review of Kiki de Montparnasse.

Also, five new issues are up for viewing in the archives. Check them out now before they go up behind the subscriber paywall.

Issue 42 features an interview with Stan Lee.

In issue 43, Gary Groth meets Neal Adams.

Issue 44 finds Kim Thompson talking to Marv Wolfman (and an enjoyable pan from Gary on Sabre--funny how having standards can pay off in unexpected ways thirty years later).

Issue 45 features Marilyn Bethke interviewing Joe Staton.

And in issue 46, Will Eisner talks to Cat Yronwoode.

Dig in while you can.

Elsewhere on the webonet:

“Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup.” I don't remember coming across that Art Spiegelman quote before, but it's nice in that it does a lot of work in not so many words. Ernesto Priego dug it up for a traditional (but not philistine) comics vs. pop art post.

The cartoonist, editor, and, um, enthusiast (?) Sammy Harkham is good at pretending to be excitable and aggressive during interviews, and his recent Comix Claptrap appearance is no exception. It's all an act, folks. Honestly, what I really appreciate in Harkham's public appearances is his willingness to be candid—a surprisingly rare trait among cartoonists, as you'd think it would go hand in hand with a talent for the form. (The Claptrap is also one of a very small handful of comics interview podcasts worth following, so get on it already.)

Jeremy Sheldon wrote an online essay for the "Aliens" issue of Granta — as far as I can tell, it's the only content in the journal about, like, real aliens (meaning the outer-space kind). Otherwise, it's all immigration issues and such. In the essay, Sheldon discusses the deep meaning of science-fiction book covers, and draws much inspiration from the fact that the big alien monster at the end of Watchmen looks like human genitalia.

Our own Kristy Valenti writes about the artist Mike Kelley's take on the bottled city of Kandor here. If you don't know Kandor, that was a shrunken city from the planet Krypton that Superman kept around in his house. Whenever he got really lonely, he'd occasionally shrink himself down and hang out with the little people inside. Most comics theorists will tell you this is a metaphor for something or other. Schizophrenia?

For CCCBC members only: The occultist Kenneth Grant, whose work played a key role in Alan Moore's recent Neonomicon series, has died.

As has been mentioned a few times here on the blog (and in the site's comments), former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter has recently published a series of rather dubious claims regarding the infamous Marvel/Jack Kirby artwork debacle. For those of you unfamiliar with this history, Rodrigo Baeza has gathered together much of the relevant information into one place. Is it depressing that this recent Shooter activity is sparking so little discussion?

The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction recently held an industry day, and there are three big reports online about it: here, here, and here. (I particularly recommend Tom Spurgeon's.) It still amazes me that the CCS exists, even now that it's nearly reached the status of a institution.