TRULY, DEEPLY, MAD-LY
A recently founded "Yahoo! Groups" mailing list for discussion of E.C. Comics includes among its regularly posting members artist, writer and editor Al Feldstein, who has been answering questions about his lengthy association with E.C. and Mad. Feldstein recently fielded inquiries about his particular variation of the E.C. breakdown process, explaining: "All of the stories I wrote for E.C. were done directly on the official E.C. illustration boards. My 'layouts' were merely the panel breakdowns for each page. I lettered the captions and balloons two lines below the top of each panel so that Jim Wroten, our letterer, could see what I wrote as he lettered. The finished pages were then turned over to the individual artist when he came in with his previous finished job... I never, ever, insisted upon any artist following tissue-overlay sketches or roughs that I would supply!" Feldstein further adds, "You will never see any Al Feldstein 'sketch-layout' for any artist... nor will you ever see a 'script' for any story I wrote for E.C.!"
INFO: Yahoo! Groups: EC Comics
posted by Egon on Friday, December 20, 2002

WA GRANT: MIND THE GAP
The Artist Trust, "a not-for-profit organization dedicated exclusively to supporting Washington State artists working in all creative disciplines," is now accepting applications for its 2003 Grants for Artists (GAP) program. "Artist Trust's GAP Program provides support for individual artist projects by awarding up to $1,400 for projects including (but not limited to) the development, completion or presentation of new work... The GAP Program is open to artists working in ALL creative disciplines including visual, performing, literary, media and interdisciplinary arts." The Trust's Dave Miller, who announced the grant to the Comics Journal message board, reminds interested parties that the Trust has previously awarded a Fellowship grant to cartoonist Pat Moriarty. Applications for the GAP program must be postmarked by February 28, 2003.
INFO: Artist Trust
posted by Egon on Friday, December 20, 2002

CHARLES BURNS' CHRISTMAS CRACKER
The New York Times reviews the return of choreographer Mark Morris' "The Hard Nut," a surreal, darkly comic take on the "Nutcracker," in a piece spotted by the Comics Journal's iJournalista! website. "Mr. Morris has based his 'Nutcracker' on the work of Charles Burns, the comic-book artist, whose drawings appear in the production," reports the Times. The show, set in a stylized 1970's suburbia, "[suggests] the sense of frightening liberation that youngsters like the ballet's little Marie may feel about their sexuality as they enter adolescence or a first love affair" while remaining accessible to an all-ages audience. "The Hard Nut," performed by Mark Morris Dance Group and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, opened on Tuesday, December 17 and runs through Sunday, December 22 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
INFO: The New York Times
INFO: BAM: The Hard Nut
LINK: iJournalista!
posted by Egon on Friday, December 20, 2002

CHRIS OLIVEROS CORNERED
The premier issue of Comic Art Magazine includes, among other features of interest, an interview with Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros covering various upcoming D&Q projects. "Drawn & Quarterly Showcase" will be an annual anthology containing three lengthy commissioned works by "promising new cartoonists." Volume 5 of the Drawn & Quarterly book-length anthology series, due next year, will feature an 80-page sampling of work by Albert Chartier, a Quebecois cartoonist who drew a monthly, full-page French-language comic strip from 1943 to 2000. "The strange thing about it is, this strip was published in a farmers' journal that only people in the rural areas would read," explains Oliveros. The "Gasoline Alley" collections continue their long gestation as the publisher assembles the necessary archive of daily strips. The first volume is currently scheduled for fall 2003 release. "It's going to be a series of about fifteen volumes, starting in 1921, going up to the early '50s... and there'll be two years of the dailies collected per volume." Each book will feature design work by Chris Ware and an introduction by Jeet Heer. Drawn & Quarterly continues its association with Dutch publisher Oog & Blik, planning the release of sketchbooks by Ware, Dupuy & Berberian and Joost Swarte, as well as Robert Crumb's "Waiting for Food" volume 3 and a book reproducing Crumb's various covers. "Forty years of magazine, record and comic covers, all the covers that he's done."
INFO: Comic Art Magazine
posted by Egon on Wednesday, December 18, 2002

CASTILLO INTERVIEWED
Newsarama runs an interview with Jesus Castillo, the Texas comics retail employee convicted on obscenity charges for selling an adult comic to an undercover policeman. The interview, conducted by Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Charles Brownstein, will appear in the upcoming edition of the CBLDF's "Busted!" newsletter. Castillo describes for Brownstein the circumstances of his arrest, the terms of his sentence, the CBLDF's involvement with his case and the impact his conviction may have on future prospects. "Before this I didn't know they would attack artwork," says Castillo, "or comic books in this case. You'd think that if it's between consenting adults that there would be no trouble on it. I guess you can just write to your representatives, and hopefully we can write enough letters that we can change or put provisions on the law."
INFO: Newsarama
LINK: CBLDF
posted by Egon on Wednesday, December 18, 2002

CAT IN HAT KILLS DICK, JANE, DAD
Louis Menand discusses "The Cat in the Hat" in the New Yorker's December 23 edition, unpacking the book's semiotic, psychological and social meanings and placing Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel's book within a larger socio-historical context. The book's success is examined as a product of Cold War paranoia over Soviet domination of the so-called "space race," prompting fears of a gap between American and European educational methods. "The popularity of 'Why Johnny Can't Read,'" Rudolf Franz Flesch's book promoting phonics over word memorization, "was one symptom of that anxiety. Another was Frederic Wertham's 'Seduction of the Innocent,' an attack on the comic-book industry." "The Cat in the Hat" and Seuss' subsequent books are revealed as excercises in phonics, embraced for their use of a pedagogical system considered more effective at developing "human capital" than the staid "Dick and Jane" books of the day. The book "also stood for the idea that language skills — and many other subjects — ought to be taught through illustrated storybooks, rather than primers and textbooks." Menand goes on to discuss the inherent deconstructive, destabilizing effect of Seuss' semiotic explorations set against a psychological milieu of abandonment and anxiety, placing Seuss' books among the countercultural fruits of the intense research and development encouraged by an entrenched United States at the height of the Cold War. He concludes by lamenting the Cat's ineffectuality in the face of human pain and ultimately compromised status as a commodity.
INFO: The New Yorker
posted by Egon on Tuesday, December 17, 2002

SFMOMA'S ANIME SHELL GAME
Wired News reports on "No Ghost Just a Shell," an exhibit of digital animation running at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from Saturday, December 21 through March 16, 2003. The show explores "complex issues such as creative freedom and intellectual property rights" as a group of artists examine the identity status of Annlee, a stock character purchased by a pair of French artists from the Kworks company, which "develops animated stock characters for cartoons, comic strips, advertisements and video games for the booming manga industry." SFMOMA is the last stop for this exhibit. At the show's conclusion, "Annlee will be 'terminated' and 'buried' in a special coffin in the SFMOMA galleries. The artists have agreed to transfer Annlee's copyright to the Annlee Association, a legal entity that belongs solely to the character. A contract stipulates that artists will no longer be able to create works with Annlee as a digital model." According to media arts curator Benjamin Weil, "It's a legal way to give back the rights to the character."
INFO: Wired News
posted by Egon on Tuesday, December 17, 2002

COMICS OF THE BOOK
The Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible project announces a call for submissions towards its projected goal of creating a fully illustrated, online version of the King James Bible. The Brooklyn art collective seeks illustrations to accompany each of the text's 36,600 individual verses. The 300 images provided thus far include contributions from Danny Hellman, Dame Darcy, Eric Reynolds, Bob Sikoryak, Lauren Weinstein and others. The project is an open, collaborative effort, explains organizer Kate Hambrecht: "You can upload a jpeg of your work directly onto the website by clicking on the verse, then on the 'not illustrated yet' icon." Alternatively, images can be mailed via post as per directions on the site. The project aims to "reflect and celebrate all the various artistic, religious and sacred perspectives on the Torah, Latter Prophets and New Testament from around the world."
INFO: The Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible
posted by Egon on Tuesday, December 17, 2002

KIN-DER-KID ART
The Olaf Gulbransson Museum für Graphik & Karikatur in Tegernsee, Germany exhibits "Lyonel Feiniger: Lustige Blätter" from December 15 through February 16, 2003. Feininger is widely acknowledged for his work as a painter and artist associated with the Bauhaus school, but is perhaps better known in cartooning circles for "The Kin-der-Kids" and "Wee Willie Winkie's World," strips created for the Chicago Tribune over a period of several months in 1906. The Gulbransson Museum exhibit focuses on Feininger's "graphic work and caricatures," showing drawings created for German satire magazines and newspapers along with sketches and Chicago Tribune originals, drawn for the paper while the artist was living in Germany.
INFO: Olaf Gulbransson Museum
posted by Egon on Tuesday, December 17, 2002

GRAPHIC NOVELS OF THE TIMES
The upcoming Sunday, December 22 edition of the New York Times Book Review cover-features graphic novels in a piece by "High Fidelity" author Nick Hornby, reports Joe Kuth to the Comics Journal message board. Hornby specifically spotlights recent releases "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "100 Demons," "Summer Blonde," "Road to America," "Blood Song" and "Shutterbug Follies."
INFO: The Comics Journal
posted by Egon on Tuesday, December 17, 2002

BEN KATCHOR'S SLUGS TAKE STAGE
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art presents Ben Katchor's latest theatrical work-in-progress, "The Slug-Bearers of Kayrol Island or The Friends of Dr. Rushower," on January 17 and 18. The show promises "projected illustrations, full animation, and live music" in a "strange tale of small home appliances, obsession, and romantic intrigue" written in collaboration with musician Mark Mulcahy. Shows are at 7:30 pm at the Museum's Hunter Center; admission is $12.
INFO: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
posted by Egon on Monday, December 16, 2002

ROBERT CRUMB RADIO
The "Bugpowder" website points out Robert Crumb's December 14 appearance on BBC Radio 3's "Jazz File," playing and commenting on favorite records in the first of a four-part series titled "Robert Crumb's Sweet Shellac." As described on the BBC website, "The great American cartoonist Robert Crumb plays some 78-rpm records of jazz and popular music from the 1920s and 30s from his legendary personal collection. The most celebrated examples of New Orleans jazz were recorded by musicians who had already left the Crescent City. Programme one focuses on some striking pieces of New Orleans jazz recorded in the city of its origin." A streaming audio file of the program is available until its displacement by next week's edition, for which Crumb promises to feature songs from Weimar Germany.
INFO: BBC
LINK: Bugpowder
posted by Egon on Monday, December 16, 2002

L. A. STORY: REBEL VISIONS
Mark Frauenfelder writes a lengthy and appreciative review of Patrick Rosenkranz's "Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975" in the L. A. Weekly's December 13 - 19, 2002 issue, as spotted by the "Bugpowder" website. The piece outlines the rise and decline of the underground comix movement as covered in Rosenkranz's book, the result of thirty years of research and interviews with cartoonists and publishers. Frauenfelder calls "Rebel Visions" "the first book that definitively chronicles one of the biggest countercultural artistic and literary movements in America."
INFO: L. A. Weekly
posted by Egon on Monday, December 16, 2002