First an update on on the attack on Charlie Hebdo:
Here are Art Spiegelman and Tariq Ramadan discussing Charlie and satire.
And here is Tom Spurgeon's evolving coverage and thoughts on the attack.
On the site, Cynthia Rose has a written a personal account of her experience on Wednesday in Paris.
Yesterday afternoon I walked to the Picasso Museum, walked because I wanted to try and avoid the gendarmes, flashing lights and soldiers. Nevertheless, I could hear the sounds of emergency all over Paris. While I crossed street after street, police motorcycles flew by
I was out because in my purse I had the invitation to a special event. It was a “concert with live drawing”, a celebration scheduled to link the Musée Picasso and the graphic novel PABLO. (A best seller in France, PABLO is soon due out in English from Blank Slate Press). I love this four-volume series and wanted to see its authors in action.
Yet how could creators Julie Birmant and Clément Oubrerie be expected to “perform”? Ever since 11:30, when five of the most beloved artists in France were gunned down at their work – along with seven colleagues – the capital had been in both shock and semi-lockdown.
The perpetrators were on the run and still out there somewhere. All over France, landmarks, schools and transport were on full alert.
And in more usual affairs, we have Katie Skelly reviewing In Clothes Called Fat.
In the world of In Clothes Called Fat, also as in Helter Skelter, a beautiful appearance isn’t just something to strive for; it determines your lot in life. Enter Mayumi, the office sweetheart, who threatens Noko’s already precarious sanity. Beloved in the office despite her questionable work ethic, Mayumi is always flocked by her admiring colleagues and outside of the office men constantly pester her. Her hair is perfect and her underwear is La Perla. Mayumi makes little secret with the rest of the office ladies about her affair with Saito; Noko overhears Mayumi recount their sexual escapades (“vanilla”) while hiding in a bathroom stall eating a candy bar. In this scene, the difference between Noko and her female colleagues is severe in Anno’s hands: while her “normal” (thin, pretty) coworkers are drawn as Anno’s signature wide-eyed waifs, Noko is both inflated and flattened at once, as abstracted as the Michelin man. Here, Noko’s appearance is not just a disruption in her office life, but also a formal disruption of Anno’s joseifashion-plate aesthetic.
Also, Tim and I both forgot to mention Greg Hunter's review of the new edition of Frontier.
And finally, we have corrected an error in Whit Taylor's CAB report. I should've caught this initially, but the sequence of events from BCGF to CAB was misrepresented. The correct sentences now read:
"After a four-year run, Nadel and Kartalopoulos dissolved the show, and Fowler launched a new convention using the same model, with a new name: Comics Art Brooklyn. He asked Paul Karasik to coordinate programming."
