Here are some images from the new edition of Megillat Esther to get you pumped. Not only is this new version in color, it also features an afterword from comics scholar Jeremy Dauber.
I’m also working on a new Megillat Esther website… so stay tuned for more updates!

Order your copy of Megillat Esther: The Graphic Tale

And check out some recent press

Recently, I was invited to participate at a Temple University conference devoted to the influence of comix in the liberal arts. Not only was I asked to be on a panel (blush) but I was also invited to curate a special exhibition in conjunction with the conference showcasing the underground comix and zine collection from the Temple University Special Collections Research Center.

Including underground comix, historic etchings, and handmade zines, the exhibition features work from Crumb, Green Grass, Pekar, Robbins, Spain, Marrs, Ditko, and Jaxon. Part lampoon and part self-portrait, the Graphic Underground highlights the significant pieces in the archive while also showcasing the diverse scope of the collection. Special consideration was given to work that focused on issues of personal freedom, censorship, and different representations of identity.

As I discovered, much of the collection included work from the 1970s-80s which featured a lot of dangling dongs and buoyant bosoms. As the exhibition is in a public space, a certain degree of editing was required so as to not offend or stir up controversy. The irony of which did not escape me.

While discussing the cognitive dissonance of curating an exhibition about censorship, while maneuvering around censors, with one of the librarians at the Special Collections Research Center she  suggested adding an empty frame with explanatory caption for the art that could not be seen due to it’s content.  Happily, the web serves as a suitable alternative space to share the more salacious and provocative images from the archive that could not be included in a public space on a college campus.

Here’s a sample of some of the the more jarring images I found:

After pouring through more than a dozen boxes of comix over the course of three visits to theSpecial Collections Research Center I was able to recognize a few general qualities about the collection:

Large Queer Representation

There were a lot of queer images that I wanted to use in the show but were just a tad too far over the line, like this great cover:

Additionally, the collection includes what looks like the entire run of HotHead Paisain: Lesbian terrorist, a couple issues of Gay Comix, Gay Heart Throbs, and Deviant Slice. 
There are lots of “L & G” representation in the collection. However, I didn’t notice much representation on the “B & T” front.

Instead, I found a lot of Furry related porn and white- hetero-male fantasy. Nevertheless, anyone looking to dive deeper than Bechdel has plenty to find here.

Large Crumb Collection

Philly native and comic book legend, Robert Crumb is nicely represented in the collection. Multiple issues of Zap as well as Arcade: The Comic Revue, Aline and Bob’s Dirty Laundry, and Big Ass Comics are in the collection. I immediately wanted to go back and watch the documentary Crumb after seeing his work in the raunchy flesh. I also had to chuckle at the reality of reading comix smut in a university library. This awesome back cover from Crumb (right) never stood a chance to be included in the exhibition.

Solid Representation of Activist Comics

From anti-war comix to stories about class warfare, animal rights, union rights, and a comic about grand juries that includes a portion of the Constitution, there are lots of political point of views represented. Most lean Left, due to the era-focus of the collection (see the next point). It would be nice to include some small press bible comics or other examples beyond Ditko’s Randian Hero, Mr. A., so that a balance of political views are represented. I shudder to think of juxtaposing contemporary Right-wing political cartoons with some of the work in this collection. In essence, a culture war through sequential art

Predominate Focus on American 1970s-1980s Underground Comix

Strong representation of work published by Last Gasp, Kitchen Sink, and The Print Mint, three of the main publishers of underground comix found in head shops across the country in the 1970s and 1980s. Before the Internet, this was where the subcultures of American society told their stories. The collection includes a who’s who associated with this era. I was saddened to notice that in the effort to catalogue the collection some comics had a “CCC” penciled on the covers.

I was overjoyed however, to discover the first five issues of Harvey’s American Splendor while digging through the boxes of comix. I had never actually held one of the originals in my hands and it was amazing to finally read issue one which was born the same year as me. Truth be told I got a bit Vklempt. I thought it was cool that two Philly boys helped usher Harvey through his comix life.

The Contemporary Culture Collection’s archive of underground comix is an excellent resource and fascinating stroll down counter culture lane. Anyone interested in tapping into the angst and creative zenith of Haight-Ashbury can get a direct line by checking out these comix. There’s also plenty of diversity of voices within the collection.

Some gaps in the archive that could be remedied by future acquisitions include work from the last 20 years as well as samples beyond the USA and UK.  With any luck, increased interest in this collection will foster its growth while also inspiring students at Temple to discover the comix gems in their own backyard. 

Dr. Michael Green, the svelte bespectacled professor who invites me each year to his class at Penn State College of Medicine, greets me along the train tracks as he normally does. Michael has had me guest teach his Graphic Storytelling & Medical Narratives course for the last few years. We met back in 2009, when I did some workshops at his local community center. Since then, Dr. Green has tasked me to help his students develop their analytic and empathic skills by making comix.

Readers familiar with my blog know that I like comix. I like to make comix and I like to to talk about them. From film adaptations to meta-fictional pop culture analysis I believe comix can tackle any subject and work in many domains. I’ve discussed how comix can be used in UX design and product development, I’ve used them as a pedagogic tool working with kids, and I’ve helped med-students figure out how to approach narratives in medicine.

Here’s the link to Dr. Green’s archive of the graphic pathographies made by doctors-in-training at Penn State College of Medicine. From personal accounts of babies born with cleft palates, to anxiety about tests or rotations, these narratives act as patient doctor resources as well as didactic exercises that point these students to bigger stories in health care.

Graphic medicine is concerned with the use of visual storytelling as a resource for patients and health practitioners. There are copious amounts of comix that address medical issues. From Pekar and Brabner’s, Our Cancer Year, to David B’s, Epileptic, comix have been helping people grapple with life and death and everything in between for some time.

Comix are being used to explain DNA and genetics, Obamacare, and how to pick up your life after surviving breast cancer. From psychoanalytical graphic therapy, to helping kids monitor diabetes with insulin, graphic medicine is a fully realized niche genre.

Testament to the growing acceptance and use of comix in the medical industry is the annual Graphic Medicine Conference this year being held in Brighton, England. Next years’ event is scheduled for Baltimore, so I hope to attend and maybe present something alongside Dr. Green. It’s not often that an illustrator/designer gets asked to review an article for a medical journal, but thanks to Dr. Green’s work, I can check that off the list!

Using comix to improve the diagnostic reasoning, observational, and empathic skills of doctors is pretty amazing. I am honored to share my obtuse insight with others who make a difference in the world and look forward to my return to Middletown. Hopefully, I wont miss the train ride home this year because I’m too busy chatting up Dr. Green and geeking out about our shared love of comix.

Header images is from Being a Patient Made Me a Better (Future) Doctor by: Jason Holmes

Photos courtesy of Dr. Michael J. Green

Using comics to describe user experiences before products are built and deployed seems like common sense to me. Obviously, Kevin Cheng agrees with this notion as well since that is the core example provided again and again throughout his book. From Scott McCloud’s Google Chrome comic to Deb Aoki’s work as a content strategist for ebay, Cheng mentions in passing that big companies use comics to tackle complex issues. But it feels like he’s just scratching the surface of this topic.

Instead of just throwing the reader into the deep end, Cheng spends much of the book deconstructing the elements of comics and how to manipulate them. Clearly, SWIM is geared for beginners and people who are not comfortable or familiar with drawing comics. From the great infographic depicting simple states of emotion to the introduction of the rule of thirds, Cheng does a fine job providing the basics of drawing, composition, and storytelling to explain the nuts and bolts of comics.

 

However, for “advanced users” like myself, I found these sections superfluous and just as the author surmised, I skipped to the end of the book to the “wrapping up” section. I actually thought that this conclusion section could have better served as an introduction to the book by making the goals and context more apparent.

At times I felt like I was reading the updated Cliffnotes version of Scott McCloud’s seminal work, Understanding Comics (1992). At other moments it seemed like a web directory of comics related online resources. Although, I must admit to enjoying the Easter egg nods to comic book geeks with shout-outs to Y the Last Man and 100 Bullets. It just felt like two-thirds of the book was a bit redundant and the last third was just not meaty enough. Like a meal that looks tasty (hat tip to Philly’s Heads of State for the cover design) but is bland to the palette, SWIM is good but not great.

I wish there was more in-depth coverage of the diverse application of comics within business practices. See What I Mean repeatedly calls the reader to consider using comics in their design toolbox but doesn’t state the case persuasively enough.  The author fails to mention how craftsman like Eisner or Sagmeister deploy comics, while companies like Pixar are glossed over and leading agencies like Campfire are completely ignored.

My favorite parts of SWIM were the case study examples at the ends of each chapter. I wanted to learn more from Deb Aoki’s experience at ebay using comics to develop workflows and iterate on personas.  
 

 

Or better yet, how about an example from a small business that uses comics to improve their margin. Although the Applying Comics Chapter briefly mentions the use of comics in medical, financial, and educational realms, these shout-outs seemed more like afterthoughts than resources.  After finishing the book I kept hearing the old lady from that Wendy’s commercial imploring, “Where’s the beef?”

There is much to be commended in Kevin Cheng’s See What I Mean: How to Use Comics to Communicate Ideas. An index that makes the book more searchable, an awesome Flickr set with all the images from the book, and copious resources like Pixton and Bitstrips make this book quite useful. But the lack of depth in the final third of the book proves that there is much more to cover on this topic. The foreword of the book posits the idea that drawing is the secret to thinking, I wish that SWIM explored more of this notion rather than covering the fundamentals.

Image header is from the book See What I Mean, by Kevin Cheng

Pekar’s Israel is open through November 18th, 2012 and it is FREE!
401 South Broad St (corner of Pine and Broad)
For more info please go to the GershmanY site

On October 14th I’ll be kicking off the Cleveland leg of my tour with the unveiling of the Harvey Pekar Sculpture at the Lee Road Public Library. Here’s the info:

Sunday October 14th at 2 PM
Harvey Pekar: A Literary, Library Life
Cleveland Heights Public Library

Join me, Joyce, and Carole (the librarian featured in the book) and all the other people who share Harvey’s love for the Lee Road Library. I’ll be doing a short presentation on how Harvey and I worked in the library followed by the unveiling of the memorial sculpture Joyce and others have been working so hard on.

Joyce still needs help funding the project so if you like Harvey Pekar and want to honor his contribution to comix and memoirs please click here.

On Monday October 15th I’ll be joining the 4th and 5th graders of the Agnon School in Beachwood to explore the Jewish roots of comix and make some of our own.

On Wednesday October 17th at 6:30 PM
A public discussion with Joyce Brabner
Thwing Center Ballroom
Case Western Reserve University
Free and open to the public
$25 contribution for preferred seating includes parking validation at Severance Hall
Click here to reserve your seat

Case Western Reserve University presents Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me, the final book by the late Jewish Cleveland author Harvey Pekar. Pekar’s illustrator JT Waldman will introduce the book and artwork and talk about his explorations of Jewish history alongside Pekar. Pekar’s widow Joyce Brabner will speak about Pekar’s life, relationship to Judaism, and views on Israel.

Monday October 22 at 8:00 PM
The University of Kentucky in Lexington will be welcoming me as part of their 2012 Hymson Lecture UK Speaker Series in Graphic Narrative and Visual Design
W.T. Young Library Auditorium
Public lecture entitled, “My Pekar Years” followed by a book signing
This presentation charts the final work of Pekar that focused on his Jewish identity before his death in 2010. Learn what it was like to work with the famous curmudgeon and watch a rare video interview of the Bard of the Rust Belt.

Monday November 12 at 6:00 PM
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
The Making of Not the Israel My Parent’s Promised Me-(Director’s Cut)
Sage Hall 1216
Public Lecture with book signing to follow
Sponsored by: department of religious Studies and Anthropology and the Religious Studies Club. Additional funding from Pepsi.
This lecture covers the production process of what would be the last book by Harvey Pekar, the cult literary figure from American Splendor. From script rewrites to style guides this is a story about making a story, and includes sketches, process documents, visual references, and video clips used in the making of Pekar’s final controversial graphic novel.

Saturday November 17th
Miami International Book Fair
Stay tuned for more details.

Monday November 26
Rutgers University Jewish Studies Department

UPDATED
Locust Moon Comix Festival
Sunday December 16th
11-am -5 pm

When perusing the complete online catalogue of PS Magazine the first thing I noticed was how effectively Eisner used comics, typography, and design to explain hard data. Eisner employed many of the methods and tools we now associate with experience design and interaction design in PS Magazine. Stories and content derived from letters sent by soldiers in the field, personas like Joe Dope and Connie Rodd, and a menagerie of infographics and sequences demonstrate how deep in the UX process Eisner was, without even knowing it.

Workflows like this:

Visualizations for those confusing purchase orders:

Use cases for when your cannon or gun turret malfunctions:

Catchy branding/ infographics that ask to be hung up as posters:

Eisner worked with a team of 15 designers to produce the digest-size monthly magazine. The new “greatest hits collection” produced by Abrams is beautifully packaged but fails to capture the scope and depth of work created by Eisner and his team. The online archive at VCU’s Digital Collection is really spectacular and I highly recommend taking a look around.

For twenty years Eisner refined and retooled his product to reflect the times that soldiers were experiencing. Each year he was forced to re-pitch his vision of educational sequential art to satisfy the US army’s requirement to have open bids. According to his wife, “After tests were conducted that overwhelmingly showed that soldiers best understood technical material when it was presented using Will’s graphic approach, opposition grudgingly disappeared.”

Eisner’s work is another shining example of comics as a usability tool and asset. With the new book coming out from Kevin Cheng by Rosenfield Press, See What I Mean: How to Use Comics to Communicate Ideas maybe this topic will get more coverage.

The elevators have perverse drawings on them and small mundane components of the museum are given voices and personalities.

Part installation, part journal entry, part forensic study, the exhibition is both playful and stunning. Mixing data from Harvard sanctioned experts to validate the confessional musings of Sagmesieter, the show feels like a playground of the artists’ mind.

Bicycle powered neon signs, typographic film studies, interactive video projections of words in a spiderweb, snippets of video clips from his new documentary The Happy Film, ginger candy, and infographics about sex. This exhibition has it all!

What I like most about The Happy Show, and Sagmeister’s work in general, is the simplicity of his typography and its ability to convey meaning. If Carlos Castaneda and Saul Bass had a love child it would be Sagmeister. I would love to see a Sagmeister comic book, I wonder what his sense of sequencing is like. Would the characters be made out of words? If you are in Los Angeles in Spring 2013, go see this show. It will brighten your day and fulfill the promise of its name.

Oh no, not another blog post lamenting the “good ol’ days” when San Diego Comic-Con was an intimate affair of a few thousand geeks?! Indeed, SDCC is not the comic book convention you once knew. Artist Alley is more of a ghetto or cul-de sac rather than what its name implies. It’s not a convention to go hunting for that missing issue of Starman from ’92. It’s not about the stories or art in comix.

SDCC is all about swag and purchasing random shit you can’t find in other more sensible places.
I mean, look at the size of the bags each person receives upon entering the con:

Now imagine 138,000 people with those bags bumping into you

In order to enjoy myself I needed to modify my expectations of San Diego Comic-Con. Moving forward I couldn’t get frustrated by the gestapo police patrolling the freebie table to ensure that only approved content was distributed for free–thus destroying the freebie matrix. I would forget seeing ANY of the TV panels since I don’t want to camp out the night before to see the Simpsons panel and endure hours of hanging with those True Blood weirdos. And the hordes of geek-paparazzi tumbling over themselves trying to snap a pic of lady Loki made me a lil shy about snapping photos and becoming one of them.

Once my perspective was corrected I was able to enjoy the consumerism and fantasy of it all. Especially all those Bible thumpers with the yellow signs telling us we’re going to Hell on the street corners outside the con.

Knowing that my enjoyment was bothering them made it all the more sacrilicious at SDCC2K12!

What I liked most about this year, was that I got to MEET people. Before we even got to the convention my buddy met one of the Deviant Art Winners selected from around the globe to visit SDCC. A Catalan artist who had never visited the US before, we took Mado into our circle, fed her, and sent her back into masses. She was sweet, and a talented artist with all the excitement and confusion of Comic-Con-first timer.

Comix professionals kibbitzing

The second day of SDCC2012 I went to a Trickster symposium with the aforementioned Ed Brubaker, Matt Wagner, Scott Morse and a bunch of other comix writers/artists. It was cool hearing them all shoot the shit and see the people behind the stories. Afterwards I bought Matt Wagner a drink and we talked for a good 45 minutes about life and comix. (Mr Wagner is one of my favorite writers/artists from my youth. Grendel was my obsession for many years, meeting him was simply … AMAZING:)

Later that night I went to a posh pop-up restaurant in a sleek penthouse on the marina in Little Italy. Some of “the most interesting people” attending SDCC were invited to dine together and bump elbows during an extravagant six course meal.  As pretentiously unctuous as that sounds, the event was full of very nice people (sans one grumpy musician) and I got the chance to bro out with ANOTHER childhood comix obsession. This time, Image Comics co-founder and Penciler for the Uncanny X-Men, Marc Silvestri was talking shop with me?! I was totally geeking out and surprised with how cool and laid back Marc was. His wife was sporting crazy Gaga shoes and he stands a staggering superhero size and he was really nice. He even gave me props on my work, so that was really freaking COOL!

My favorite cosplay of the con was this little number:

I had no idea who she was but her attitude and camel toe was just banging! Turns out she’s a cartoon from Adult Swim named Lil Cuyler.

I also had the chance to meet some of the people at MadeFire and checked out their new Motion Book platform, which was pretty cool. I would love to get Megillat Esther on that.

The other major highlight worth mentioning was the session I presented on The Legacy of Harvey Pekar. Thanks to all the people who came out to celebrate the life and work of “our man.”

All in all it was a great convention as you can see from the photos I snapped on Flickr. I got some cool comix and great tshirts (I’m looking at you Unshelved!).

Who knows, maybe next year I’ll go back …

Stuff I got at SDCC2K12

On June 18th I kicked off the promo tour for the book at the 47th Annual Jewish Librarians Association Conference. I presented a 45 minute lecture called “My Pekar Years (2004-2012)” where I detailed how I met Harvey and what our process making comix was like. I then spoke about how the book evolved and how I finished the book without him. Included in the presentation were images of sketches, extra photos and a never-before-seen video clip of Harvey in January of 2010.

Here’s a snapshot I took while the audience watched said video

Also featured during the Jews and Comics lecture block was Arlen Schumer, who gave a lively presentation on the Jewish roots of super-heroes. I also met some nice comix and design aficionados Michael Dooley and Michael Aushenker.

I love librarians, so this was a great place to kick off the promotional tour for Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me (NTIMPPM) I had some marvelous conversations with extremely bright people. The book was warmly welcomed and copies of Megillat Esther were sold within an hour of the first day. Thank you to all the great people I met at AJL 47.

Next up, on the promo tour is San Diego Comic Con where Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me will be making its official debut! Big thanks to Mysterious Galaxy at Booth 1119 for carrying both my books at SDCC2012. I’ll be doing a presentation on the Legacy of Harvey Pekar and then a signing. Here’s the official info:

San Diego Comic Con 2012
Legacy of Harvey Pekar
Saturday, 7/14/12,
4:30p.m. – 5:30p.m., Room: 26AB

Signing is just after:
Saturday AA18 06:00 PM – 07:00 PM

Come say hi!

The official release parties for the book will be in early September in both NYC and then Philly! Also, in September there will be an exhibition of original art from the book in Philly, while in Cleveland the installation of the Pekar and comix statue at the Lee Road Library will be taking place in October. I’ll be paying a visit to Case Western, University of Kentucky, Rutgers and a few other universities while also promoting the book at the Baltimore ComicCon, the Miami Book Fair and maybe somewhere near you!

Oddly enough, companies are not actively seeking out the unique expertise of comix illustrators and writers to help them understand use cases and screen flows. There’s talk of data scientists and business designers but little play is given to sequential artists when discussing user experience, interaction design or human-computer interactions.

Slowly but surely interest in the topic of comix and use cases has risen among some tech circles. An entirely new genre of graphic medicine comix have emerged showing the empathic and diagnostic power of comix while designers like Kevin Cheng preach a similar gospel via his presentations:

Data visualization, use cases, paper prototyping, work flows, and wireframes all have something to gain with a comix pro in the mix.