Good morning to you and to Tucker Stone and friends. It's been a very busy week in comics and I'm looking forward to a detailed report on BCGF fashion and personalities.
What else is online?
The historian and publisher Ray Zone has passed away. He was known to comics readers for the numerous 3-D comics he produced, particularly in the 1980s, but he also published some great 2-D comics, including the excellent mini comic series (and later collection) Zomoid Illustories. Mark Evanier has a remembrance. And here is Ray Zone's web site and wikipedia entry.
Artist (and occasionally comics maker) Jim Drain has our best perspective on the philosophy of Garfield. He also has a beautiful show up in Los Angeles.
Jonathon Keats writes about Art Spiegelman's eclecticism for Forbes.
Alan Moore will soon release a short film. Here's a preview.
Jim Rugg has posted a time-lapse video of one of his astonishing ballpoint pen drawings.
Here's an overview of Shakespeare adaptions in comics from American Theatre.
I plunged into this array of adapted Shakespeare as a fan of the plays but no expert, and as a novice in the world of comics and graphic novels. My interest emerged from my own experience, at age eight or nine, during Nixon’s first term, of reading The Iliad and A Tale of Two Cities, not in their original versions, but via the series of comic books called Classics Illustrated. Although they ceased publication in 1962, my brother and I scavenged barely vintage copies from paper drives and tag sales and secured them in a tin breadbox (also found curbside); we would withdraw them from their cask on a narrow loft in our garage to read about Sydney Carton and Helen of Troy. Why we required an aerie for this I don’t know—our schoolteacher mother wasn’t likely to have objected. As a result, I am no snob when it comes to this form, but rather a childhood fan looking to see how it has developed.
Speaking of accessibility issues, here's comics writer Kelly Sue DeConnick on the gender gap in comic books.
And here's an audio recording of a panel discussion this year's CAKE about women and graphic autobiography with Rina Ayuyang, Julia Wertz, Leslie Stein, Marian Runk, Keiler Roberts and Lucy Knisley.
