Another week done gone, huh? And into the weekend for all of us. I'm feeling a little jaunty about it. But not to worry, Tucker Stone and co. are here to leave you with some feelings about the medium you love and cherish.
Elsewhere, the big, rumored-about news is that MoCCA has announced via press release that it will "transfer its assets" to the Society of Illustrators. This apparently includes "its permanent art collection and the MoCCA Fest name". Also, from the PR:
The Society will continue and expand MoCCA’s mission in a number of ways: staging MoCCA Fest in its current location, dedicating a gallery in the Society building to MoCCA’s Permanent Collection, continuing MoCCA programming, and curating a special exhibition of works from MoCCA’s Permanent Collection in their Hall of Fame Gallery (on display March 5-May 4), which will run in conjunction with a major exhibit, “The Comic Art of Harvey Kurtzman,” curated by graphic designer and comics-anthology editor Monte Beauchamp. There will be extensive arts programming around both of these exhibits, including lectures, workshops, film and music series. Current MoCCA memberships will be honored at the Society of Illustrators.
I think it's a bit of shame to place comics under the umbrella of illustration (though I love the latter), if only because it only just recently crawled out from under said umbrella and I prefer the medium stand on its own. Then again, as above, their histories are well intermingled, so a smart curator could do some interesting shows working deep in the Society stacks. I'll be very curious how the Society handles comics, and also how it handles the current (very controversial) MoCCA board/staff. I'll refrain from reading too much into the PR. We'll have full coverage early next week.
And in other places online: It's TCJ-contributors run amuck, writing for other publications like they haven't a care in the world, throwing words hither and yon with great flair.
Here's our Northern friend Jeet Heer on Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See for the LA Review of Books:
Mouly’s new collection Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See, documents the Brown era and beyond, and shows how she gave the public face of The New Yorker a make-over, turning out covers that are much livelier and more timely while also skirting at the edge of good taste, and occasionally getting reined in by the magazine’s governing code of propriety. What does a cultural agitator do when she’s put in charge of the covers of a venerable publication, one that, in recent decades, has had a tropism towards stuffiness? One predictable innovation was recruiting a cohort of artists from Raw, including Burns, Richard McGuire, Robert Crumb, and Jacques de Loustal. Eventually, Mouly also brought on a wider array of cartoonists from outside the Raw orbit, like Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and Seth. These artists brought the inventiveness and élan of contemporary narrative cartooning to The New Yorker.
Here's that Tucker Stone again, co-opting Joe McCulloch (patron saint of the unreadable-yet-intriguing), Matt (handsome man) Seneca, and Chris (wise & stable) Mautner with their gold darned podcast.
Oh heavens, here's Sean T. Collins telling you about Batman books for Rolling Stone!
And, beneath that handsome cover there will be some comics in this year's Best American Comics. Here is a list of them.
Finally, despite my intense love for his work, I did not know that Seymour (my fantasy football league illustrator/designer of choice for my life) Chwast had a column over at Print. Now you know, too.
