Two quick items of note. (I’m still packing for our move to Iowa.)
First, this from a press release I just received from Drawn & Quarterly about Adrian Tomine’s appearance Feb. 09, 7 to 8 p.m., at my favorite bookstore, the Strand in Manhattan:
A loose, cartoony departure from Adrian Tomine’s previous work, Scenes From an Impending Marriage is a sweet-natured, laugh out-loud skewering of the modern marriage process, including hiring a D.J., location scouting, trips to the salon, suit fittings, dance lessons, registering for gifts and managing familial demands.
Leanne Shapton, author of The Native Trees of Canada and Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry, will join Adrian on the Strand stage.
You can read my posts on an earlier Tomine graphic novel, Shortcomings, here and here.
Also this from the Daily Cartoonist, about the people who bring you the wonderful Festival of Cartoon Art in Columbus ...:
The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation has pledged $250,000 over five years to support the new Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum facility, part of the Sullivant Hall renovation at Ohio State University. In recognition of this gift, the library’s seminar room will be named in honor of Will Eisner. The Eisner Family Foundation gift will be matched dollar for dollar by Jean Schulz, widow of Peanuts’ creator Charles M. Schulz, giving it a $500,000 impact on the project. Ms. Schulz has promised to match donations to the new facility up to $2.5 million.
The Sullivant Hall renovation is estimated to cost $24.4 million and is scheduled to be completed in 2013, at which time Sullivant Hall will house the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum as well as The Ohio State University Department of Dance and the Department of Art Education. Upon completion of the Schulz Challenge, the Sullivant Hall renovation will be completely funded.Read more
here.
While I prepare to move and start a new job, future posts for “The Sparrow Papers” might appear on a less-than-regular basis. We’ll see what happens after that.
In the meantime, volume 14 of Battle Angle Alita: Lost Order is now out. From what I’ve read so far, it appears Yukito Kishiro developed cameos for many of the long-unseen characters from his years-long tale. And that is playing to his strengths.
Today’s USA Today has brief interviews with comic book writers Ed Brubaker, about Incognito: Bad Influences, featuring the return of Zack Overkill, and Grant Morrison, about the Batman Incorporated series.
“The people who grew up reading comic books are now in charge of pop cuture,” Brubaker says. Which is the same contention made by and about Doctor Who fans who, now adult writers, actors, directors, producers, special-effects folk, marketers, et al., took over the BBC and re-launched the longest running — and best — sci-fi TV show. (The next season airs on BBC and BBC America this coming April.)
You can read my earlier post on Brubaker here, and see the USA Today stories here and here.
In case you missed it, Neil Gaiman was on Talk of the Nation on NPR this afternoon. You can listen to it here.
Host Neal Conan, who recently interviewed Robert and Sophie Crumb, gave himself away. When one listener noted she went to the comic book store “every month,” Conan piped up with: “Every month? New comic books come out every Wednesday.”
Conan also confessed he enjoyed Gaiman’s Sandman series so much he couldn’t bear to finish the last couple issues.
Gaiman was on the show to promote The Best American Comics 2010, which he edited.
It’s more like “Lost Order.” Volume 13 of this series came out way back in June.
I’ve mentioned this before, but Viz seriously tampers with the patience and, frankly, loyalty of fans of Yukito Kishiro’s epic tale. With seven months between English-language editions, we’ll never see the conclusion … or by then, we won’t have the mental faculties to comprehend what’s going on.
Sigh.
In any case, volume 14 of Alita’s/Gally’s/Yoko’s excellent adventure — it really is one long tale, filled with honor, horror, bravery, humor, fantasy and grit — is set to be published Jan. 11. I love this story and I strongly recommend it.
See some earlier posts on this series here and here, which have links to even earlier posts. (I also suggest reading that first post of mine before starting “Battle Angel,” as it fills in a lot of the back story.)
In Michael Schumacher’s lively 2010 biography of Spirit creator Will Eisner, Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics, he tells of Eisner’s first visit to a comic book convention, in New York in 1971.
Eisner wanted to see what underground comix were all about and to meet some of those cartoonists. Imagine his shock when the 54-year-old child of the Great Depression happened to pick up a copy of Zap that featured an S. Clay Wilson story involving a character whose penis is cut off and eaten.
Kitchen Sink Press publisher Denis Kitchen tried to assure the visibly upset Eisner this wasn’t a typical underground story. But also present was a young cartoonist named Art Spiegelman, who decided to speak up in defense of Wilson’s work.
Eisner left and did not return, Schumacher writes.
Come forward 39 years, to this past month’s Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State University — a conference that over the years has brought many established and up-and-coming cartoonists (including Eisner himself in its early years).
Bizarro cartoonist Dan Piraro entertained the audience during his afternoon presentation with what easily could pass for a stand-up comedy routine. At one point, he told about his flight to Columbus from New York City, during which a male passenger some rows ahead got up while the seatbelt sign was still lit.
A flight attendant turned on the public-address system and ordered the passenger to sit down, which he reluctantly did, muttering something to the effect of, “All right, all right already.” The attendant then stormed over to the passenger’s seat and continued to berate him, according to Piraro.
After the attendant left, the indignant passenger, a la Rodney Dangerfield, looked around to the rest of passengers as if to say, “Did you see how she treated me?”
And that’s when Piraro realized, “Holy ****, that’s Art Spiegelman!”
Some things don’t change, apparently.
Spiegelman, who was in one of the front rows at the conference when Piraro told this anecdote, denied none of it.
See my earlier posts on the conference here, here, here and here. And on one of Eisner’s graphic novels, A Contract With God, here.
You wouldn’t think just pasting up all the pages from R. Crumb’s book, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, would be that great of an art exhibit.
But there is a lot to be said for being able to stand a nose-length from those black-and-white drawings. You can study every stroke — how Crumb drew thinner bands of horizontal striations for his night sky, the “pockets” of hatchings within solid black to depict folds for all-black robes.
The exhibit, officially titled “The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis,” also features a casement brimming with materials Crumb collected for reference — old comic books, children’s bibles and colorful display cards from cheesy Biblical and sword-and-sandals movies.
The show runs through Jan. 16, 2011, at the Columbus Museum of Art. (It probably travels on to some other place after that, I imagine.) I viewed it while back in town during the 10th Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State University.
My posts on the OSU cartoon conference can be read here, here and even more here.
Next Monday, Nov. 15, the Columbus Museum will show the documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, with a discussion with the director, Andrew Cooke, and a chat with “Crumb” curator Lisa Dent.
