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Greek graphic biography Logicomix reviewed in Post

2009-11-15T15:01:00Z

Big ideas, bright colors
Dan Kois
Washington Post Sunday, November 15, 2009

LOGICOMIX
An Epic Search for Truth
By Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna
Bloomsbury. 347 pp. Paperback, $22.95

I've got it, but haven't read it yet.

James Jean and Tara McPherson at ComICA by Paul Tierney

2009-11-15T15:00:43Z

Paul Tierney attended the ComICA talk on behalf of Bleeding Cool with James Jean and Tara McPherson last Friday.

Like many of the talks at ComICA in the ICA, Fabulous: James Jean & Tara McPherson was originally scheduled to take place in the 90-capacity Nash Room. However demand for tickets was so great that the talk was moved to the venue’s main cinema. I arrived to find a queue for the sold-out event stretching out of the building.

Tara McPherson was first on to the stage, and she’s probably best known to a comics audience for her stylish covers and comics pages for the Vertigo books The Witching and Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, but her work also extends to album covers, gig posters, advertising and editorial illustration, sculpture and toys.

She began her talk with some of the images she produced during high school through to college, musing on how the past shapes the future as many of her signature motifs were present in her earliest work.

Leaving high school early McPherson went on to community college, but finding all the art classes full she took an astronomy class, a field that she “completely fell in love with”, and swapped her major to astrophysics for 18 months. Thinking hard about a career in astronomy she decided she didn’t relish spending long nights alone logging data in an observatory, so she switched her major back to art. She now finds herself spending long nights alone in her studio instead.

Her first comics job was for Vertigo, a cover for Lucifer, which led to working on covers for Thessaly and The Witching. This in turn led illustrating a 14 page story for Fables that she found challenging, giving her a renewed sense of respect for the workload tackled by comics artists.

McPherson went on to lead us through an engaging slide-show illustrating the wide variety of work she produces and the processes she uses to make it. She feels strongly that artists should retain the rights to their work, it’s “super important, never do work for hire”, she asserts. Regardless of what a work was originally produced for it is always possible that it can be exhibited or re-purposed in new work.

James Jean started his talk with a quick bit of family history; born in Taiwan, the family moved to New Jersey after his father was sent there by the chemical company he worked for. He studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City with ambitions to become a narrative painter. After graduating he briefly visited Europe before returning to look for work in a post-9/11 New York. The market for illustration was at a low point but it was at this time that Vertigo commissioned seven Fables covers from him.

Speaking of the excitement comics like Wolverine brought into his peaceful suburban upbringing he showed us an early adolescent drawing of the X-Men influenced by the style of Jim Lee. Followed up with an image produced ten years later from his professional career which drew gasps from the crowd.

Jean showed slides of some of his early influences, George Grosz, Kathe Kollwitz, R.B. Kitaj and moved on to his student work and images from his early, highly worked, sketchbooks. Continuing, he provided the audience with an entertaining overview of his artwork, technique and career path up until the present. Touching upon his many illustration commissions, comics related work, books, his poster of Silk Sceptre in the Watchmen film, and most recently his mural and animation designs for Prada in New York and Milan.

He finished up with some images from the sketchbooks he kept while hanging around the set of the upcoming film Peacock – portraits of it’s stars including Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon and Cillian Murphy. Also he showed some of the life-drawing and painting he’s produced with Sasha Grey modelling for him.

Once the talk and Q&A were over all that was left to do was to quickly get out of the cinema to make way for a 20:30 screening, and to go and join the long queue for signings, and perhaps to try and get some of that limited edition James Jean crockery (yes, that too).

by Paul Tierney. ComICA continues in London through the rest of November.

Missed It: Irene Vartanoff Interview

2009-11-15T23:10:00Z

A couple of you wrote in to gently chide me for not bringing attention to this fine interview with Irene Vartanoff -- the second e-mail made me scramble to go look at it, and you folks were right. Vartanoff did assistantship-editorial-management-writing stints with both mainstream comics companies from the early 1970s into the early 1980s. She was also a figure in the Jack Kirby art scandal, having done I think the only true attempt at a catalog and general inventory on Marvel's original art holdings.

It's a very clear-headed interview with some practical talk as to what happened to romance comics during the time she was in comics.

Not Comics: The Greatest Sports Feat Of All Time, Now In Animated Form

2009-11-15T23:05:00Z

Drawing In Strips Should Still Matter...

2009-11-15T23:00:01Z

... if only because this Richard Thompson portrait of Alice Otterloop as a feral two-year-old is funny all by itself, and hopefully adds an element to the final joke that wouldn't be there otherwise. It just doesn't seem right that the quality we can perceive in the above should fail to contribute in a positive way to the end result, especially as a general rule.

I wonder if strips in particular end up being read as code more than consumed as a unique artistic experience. When I was writing for a strip, I was told by syndicate folks that some people frequently used the same art in a different strip, mostly as a way to catch up but also because no one would notice. That linked-to Cul-De-Sac may even employ this technique, with the two Alice. There are plenty of people that believe almost no one reads comic strip art at all, and that at best the art is used as a visual pushing-off point to keep the readers' eyes locked on the words. I'm not certain. What I worry about is that because they're read so quickly, that this has a longterm effect on limiting what strips do. I also wonder if old strips hang on so strongly in part because they're so familiar they provide reassurance, that they're recognizable as humor more than they are actually satisfying, that they convince us they're funny more than make us laugh.

Go, Look: Laurent Cilluffo Animation

2009-11-15T23:00:00Z

that's about the last thing I ever expected to see on-line; above is an unrelated image

If I Were In Miami, I'd Go To This

2009-11-15T22:50:01Z

If I Were In Brooklyn, I'd Go To This

2009-11-15T22:50:00Z

If I Were In The UK, I'd Go To This

2009-11-15T22:50:00Z

If I Were In San Diego, I'd Go To This

2009-11-15T22:50:00Z

FFF Results Post #189 -- Salute

2009-11-15T22:30:00Z

On Friday, CR readers were asked to "Name Five Good Characters With A Real Or Fake Military-Style Rank." This is how they responded.

Tom Spurgeon

1. General Dum Dum Dugan
2. General Thunderbolt Ross
3. Private Sad Sack
4. Sergeant Spook
5. Captain Marvel, Jr.

*****

Justin J. Major

1. The Lieutenant Marvels (Fat Marvel, Tall Marvel, and Hill Marvel)
2. Captain Boomerang (Flash Rogues Gallery & Suicide Squad)
3. Major Force (Captain Atom)
4. Colonel Travis Morgan (Warlord)
5. General Zod ("Kneel before Zod!")

*****

Andrew Mansell

1. Colonel Steve Canyon
2. Lt Colonel Terry Lee
3. Sergeant Orville Snorkel
4. Captain Action (is his name, bold adventure is his game)
5. General Bullmoose "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA!"

*****

Marc Sobel

1. Colonel Fury
2. Captain Caveman
3. Admiral Ackbar
4. General Matapolas
5. Captain Easy

*****

Matt Blind

1. Willie & Joe (pvt.)
2. Nick Fury (sgt., with his Howling Commandos)
3. Nick Fury (col., agent of S.H.I.E.L.D)
4. Nick Fury (gen., Ultimate Marvel version: the one that looks and talks like Samuel L. Jackson)
5. General J.E.B. Stuart, The Haunted Tank.

*****

John Platt

1. Sarge Steel
2. Captain Victory
3. Major Damage
4. Colonel Computron
5. General Thunderbolt Ross

*****

Gary Usher

1. Major Ozone (George Herriman)
2. Admiral Fudge (Harry Grant Dart)
3. Cap Stubbs and Tippie (Edwina Dumm)
4. Major Hoople (Gene Ahern)
5. Captain Easy (Roy Crane)

*****

Tom Bondurant

1. Private Steve Rogers
2. Sgt. Frank Rock
2. Rittmeister Hans Von Hammer
4. Colonel Nick Fury
5. General Immortus

*****

Johnny Bacardi

1. Major Bummer
2. Major Disaster
3. Major Mynah
4. Major Victory
5. Captain Johner (and the Aliens)

*****

Russell Lissau

1. Col. Nick Fury
2. Captain America
3. Lt. Jim Gordon (Year One era, of course)
4. Captain Atom
5. Captain James T. Kirk

*****

Don MacPherson

1) Captain Cold
2) Sgt. Rock
3) Major Disaster
4) Captain America
5) G.I. Robot

*****

Des Devlin

* Cappy Dick
* Private Doberman
* Lieutenant Etta Candy
* Alpha Centurion
* Cobra Commander

*****

David Welsh

1. Carol (Ms. Marvel) Danvers
2. B.D. (Doonesbury)
3. Lt. Col. Roy Mustang (Fullmetal Alchemist)
4. Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist)
5. 2nd Lieutenant Alice L. Malvin (Pumpkin Scissors)

*****

Daniel Boyd

1. Private Beetle Bailey
2. Sergeant Rock
3. Captain Storm
4. Sergeant Fury
5. Captain America

*****

Michael May

1. Lt. BD
2. Captain America
3. Col. Steve Trevor
4. Sgt. Frank Rock
5. Cobra Commander

*****

Grant Goggans

1. Major Eazy
2. Colonel Kovert
3. Captain America
4. Colonel Dan Dare
5. General Blood n' Nuts

*****

Stergios Botzakis

1. General Zod
2. Captain Boomerang
3. The Captain (from NextWave)
4. Lt. Roscoe Schumacher
5. Major Bludd

*****

Uriel A. Duran

1) Cobra Commander
2) The Unknown Soldier
3) Rittmeister Enemy Ace
4) Lieutenant Benjamin Jacob Grimm
5) General Electric (from Asterix & The Goths)

*****
topic suggested by Michael Aushenker
*****
*****

Happy 42nd Birthday, Ariel Olivetti!

2009-11-15T22:15:00Z

Comics, Kids and the Creation of Galaxy Man

2009-11-15T15:42:41Z

Atlanta area comic book store owner, and his creation that brings hope to the galaxy.

Viz Creator Kicks Off Against Tate Britain Exhibition

2009-11-15T14:00:41Z

Chris Donald, co-founder of Viz Comic, now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary is a little annoyed.

He retired from Viz Comic ten years ago on the back of his fortune made. But he’s not too please with the currrent management and creative team for agreeing to a Viz exhibition at the Tate Britain gallery in London.

The diaplay next June, as part of a British Comic Art exhibition, includes work from William Hogarth, Steve Bell, Gerald Scarfe and Donald McGill.

The Sunday Sun quotes Donald as saying;

I wouldn’t say it was an honour. Viz isn’t ‘art’ in the modern, public-funded, pretentious sense of the word. Frankly I don’t know what they – the Tate or Viz – are playing at.

Viz tried to avoid being part of the Establishment in my day. Maybe now they’re trying to infiltrate the Establishment in order to subvert it. But I think it’s more likely some haughty toff offered them a few quid to lend them some dirty pictures, and they thought ‘What the heck’.

Since quitting Viz in 1999 I’ve been out of the loop. I was consulted about the Viz 30th anniversary exhibition of cartoon artwork that’s on in London at the moment, but only cos they wanted to borrow some cartoons off me.

Since then I’ve only heard about the Tate exhibition through the grapevine. I have no idea what it will consist of. I won’t be going anyway.

I met Chris Donald a few times when I was a student at Newcastle University and consider Viz to not only be a fine ongoing comic, but also an integral part of modern British culture. So I’m glad no one told Donald about the Harrods British Comics Exhibition I curated last year, which featured Viz work in the bowels of the mighty department store…

The Sunday Sun also quotes early Viz creator Simon Thorpe, still at Viz, saying

That sounds like Chris. He can be a bit gloomy and perhaps you caught him on a bad day. He does have problems with his bowels.

It’s an exhibition about British comic art through history. We’re a very small part of it. We’re supposed to be curating part of the exhibition which is divided into various sections. There’s the bawdy section and social satire – whatever that is – which is what we’re part of.

We’re not attempting to ingratiate ourselves with the Establishment. We’re all over 40. You can’t go round defacing bus shelters all your life.

I look forward to covering British Comic Art at Tate Britain closer to the date. I bet Paul Gravett is involved in some way…

Monkey Covers

2009-11-15T13:38:00Z

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

Detective Chimp laments his own passing on Steve Scott & Wayne Faucher's cover to Shadowpact #5 (2006).

(Standard disclaimer about not-dead talking chimpanzees not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Sunday Morning Bullyfilm: Breakfast at Forbidden Planet

2009-11-15T13:00:00Z

X-Men 3 – The Other Version

2009-11-15T13:00:23Z

A couple of weeks ago, /Film ran a podcast with X2 screenwriter Mike Dougherty, which touched on his treatment for X-Men 3 that got lost in the shuffle from director Bryan Singer to Matthew Vaughan to Brett ratner, though a few pieces still seem to have remained. And the chaps at First Showing have done the transcription duty.

Dougherty described his treatment, saying;

The idea – you open up with Alkali Lake but it’s completely barren and dried up and there are these odd reports of strange phenomena going on around the world accompanied by bright lights in the sky.

The idea would be that both the X-Men and the Brotherhood realize that essentially a very god-like force had entered their reality and that it was causing disruptions around the world – mutant prisons being decimated. I had pitched an idea about a fleet of cargo ships getting torn apart in the Atlantic and you found out that they were shuttling mutants as slave labor.

So basically you found out was that Phoenix was going round the world taking things into her own hands and that she had basically returned as a god, which they did touch upon in X3. She had viewed herself as above the conflict, that she was here to end things on her terms, she was basically sick of the fighting and she was going to take things into her own hands and she didn’t give a shit what the X-Men or the Brotherhood had to say about it.

And ultimately the way it was going to end, at least the version I was pushing for, would be that Phoenix was kind of like the Starchild at the end of 2001, she didn’t just get stabbed and die again, but she kind of chose to leave.

The one idea that I loved, that I really wanted to do, was that Cyclops would build the Danger Room. Cyclops felt guilty, he felt that because the X-Men were too weak, they weren’t strong enough, they weren’t fast enough, that was the reason Jean died. If they were a little bit better at fighting, then she might still be alive. It was all about this guilt he had about her death and so he built the Danger Room to train them to be better. But in the end it really was about him not being able to let go of her, so that causes all the chaos and disruption in the movie. But in the end it’s about him letting her go.

Ultimately she kind of becomes that cosmic force that Phoenix is known to be, she choose to leave Earth and become a god, or at least a higher level of intelligence, and she goes into the cosmos possibly to kick-start life somewhere else… The final scene for me would have been her telling Cyclops or her telling the X-Men ‘I’ll be watching.’ Essentially she becomes a god.

Would it have been better? Maybe. Either way, I think I’d have liked the Ang Lee version more…

Sunday At ComICA – Sixteen Thousand Dollars At Stake

2009-11-15T12:00:18Z

Tonight, the first Graphic Novelist fellowship from the The Arts Foundation will be discussed as part of ComICA, the largest English-speaking comics arts festival in the world, taking place in London right now. The prize is worth £10,000 – that’s about $16,000.

Judges Pat Mills (creator of 2000AD), Posy Simmonds (Tamara Drewe) and Paul Gravett (ComICA!) will discuss the changing graphic novel, introduce the five finalists, Kate Brown, Bill Bragg, Karrie Fransman and James McKay to discuss their work.

The Arts Foundation has been making awards over the last eighteen years totally over one and a half million pounds to those accomplished in craft, fine art, performing arts, film, design and new media, but this is the first time graphic novels have been included in the list. The winner of the Graphic Novelist Fellowship will be decided on by the Trustees of the Foundation and will be announced, along with the other 4 awards in Textile Art, Cinematography, Jewellery Design and Puppetry, on the 28th January.

And whoever wins, well, they should be good to buy drinks afterwards.
Free, ICA, London, 7.30pm

P.S Oh yes, and I’ll be running the Future Of Superhero Comics panel at the ICA tomorrow… will Cameron Stewart kill me? What surprise people will be in the audience? Come by, all!

The Top 75 Most Iconic Covers in DC History - Day 14

2009-11-15T06:45:07Z

Okay, in case you didn't see the introduction, the concept is that each day up to and including the 23rd of November, I'll be posting four iconic covers from DC Comics' 75-year history. On the 23rd, you folks will get a chance to pick your Top 10 out of the 90 choices. I'll tabulate the votes and I'll debut the Top 75 Most Iconic Covers in DC Comics History on November 30th. In the meantime, feel free to e-mail me (bcronin@comicbookresources.com) with suggestions for covers for me to use!

Here's the next four covers! And click here for the master list of all the covers posted so far!

6 Comments

At November 15, 2009, Cpl Otter wrote:
How can the Wonder Woman cover be considered "iconic" if it takes away the most iconic thing about her- namely, ...
At November 15, 2009, azjohnson5 wrote:
Wow. Great ones today, all are CLASSICS! Love, love , love #4, #1 shepherds an entire new era for DC, ...
At November 15, 2009, Thok wrote:
Heh, cover 4 is a clever pick. Basically, anything in DC that has to do with gorillas is influenced ...
At November 15, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:
Can't beat Jack Kirby cover.

However, that Wonder chick's soooooo 60's and grroooooovy. ;-)
At November 15, 2009, sgt rawk wrote:
Monkeys! More monkeys! Super Heroes Battle Super Gorillas! Titano! That strange issue of Wonder Woman! Grodd! More monkeys! RRRAAAARRGH1

Monkeys.
At November 15, 2009, Mason King wrote:
Wow, I've been collecting since the early 1980s and I wasn't aware of the Strange Adventures cover. Does anyone have ...

Comic Critics #93!

2009-11-15T06:13:30Z

Here is the latest installment of the Comic Critics strip, courtesy of Sean Whitmore (writer) and Brandon Hanvey (artist)! You can check out the first ninety-two strips at the archive here and you can read more about Sean and Brandon at the Comic Critics blog.

Enjoy!

Let us know what you think, either here or at the ComicCritics blog!

6 Comments

At November 15, 2009, Ninjazilla wrote:
...Ive been there.
At November 15, 2009, Greg Hatcher wrote:
The girl that's still nice to you after a tirade like that? That from all appearances somehow continues to like ...
At November 15, 2009, Jeff Holland wrote:
Ohhhh, totally. My girlfriend is pretty geeky herself, but just yesterday she asked, idly, "Are there any Canadian X-Men?"

I believe ...
At November 15, 2009, Bry wrote:
Ha! The last line sold this for me. At least he's more self-aware than a lot of comic fans. ;)

Though ...
At November 15, 2009, Adam wrote:
Yep, he lost her at "Green Lantern." I wonder why my wife sticks with me when I have conversations ...
At November 15, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:
@Jeff Holland: You should've said "Alpha Flight" and maybe got some. ;-)