STEINBERG SHOW AT SVA
The New York Times profiles "Steinberg: An Intimate View of His Art and World," an exhibit currently on view at the School of Visual Arts Museum. The show displays work owned by Saul Steinberg's long-time assistant Anton van Dalen, who described the late artist's interests, habits and process for the paper. "Many students today know nothing about art history, he said. Steinberg was the opposite, an artist who plundered everything, Chinese art for clouds, Dutch art for sky, Cubism for cars, Futurism for street life: 'He used art history as a grammar,'" van Dalen said. "Steinberg: An Intimate View of His Art and World" runs through March 13, 2004.
INFO: The New York Times
posted by Egon on Saturday, February 21, 2004

ICAF REVISES CFP
The International Comic Arts Festival (ICAF) organizing committee has issued a revised call for papers, extending the due date for paper abstracts to March 12, 2004. "For its scholarly presentations, ICAF prefers argumentative, thesis-driven papers, clearly linked to larger critical, artistic or cultural issues. We strive to avoid presentations that are merely summative or survey-like in character." Proposals of up to 300 words must be submitted to Cécile Danehy, either via post or via e-mail: cdanehy@wheatonma.edu. ICAF will take place September 30 - October 2 in Bethesda, Maryland, "in conjunction with SPX 2004."
INFO: ICAF
posted by Egon on Saturday, February 21, 2004

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE
Matt Madden has launched a dedicated "Exercises in Style" website, showcasing his ongoing constraint-based comics project. The series of one-page comics is based upon Raymond Queneau's book of the same name: "In that book, Queneau spun 99 variations out of a mundane, two-part text about two chance encounters with a mildly irritating character during the course of a day," Madden writes. "The goal of this project is to apply the same principle to comics by creating as many variations as possible on a simple one-page non-story." The website contains "eleven new exercises that have not been shown anywhere yet."
INFO: Exercises in Style
posted by Egon on Saturday, February 21, 2004

TIMES RINGS BELL
The February 20 New York Times Arts section briefly reviewed "The Stacks," an exhibit of Marc Bell's work currently on view at the Adam Baumgold Gallery. "Mr. Bell's zanily complicated fine-line ink drawings and paintings, like medieval manuscript pages with collage and sculptural elements sometimes added, don't deal in logical narratives. The delight of his work is in the play of a free-associating and funny imagination," writes Ken Johnson. "As with the genre's best artists, there is more here than just amusing cleverness. You get the feeling that the artist is struggling to track the incomprehensible flux of his own psyche." "The Stacks" runs through March 13, 2004.
INFO: The New York Times
posted by Egon on Saturday, February 21, 2004

FEIFFER HONORED BY WGA
Jules Feiffer will receive the Writers Guild of America, East's Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing at the 56th Annual WGA Awards later this month. The award is given annually to a Guild member "in honor of his or her lifetime body of work as a writer in motion pictures or television." Among other film and animation projects, Feiffer received a 1961 Oscar for "Munro," a comics-based animated short produced in collaboration with Gene Deitch. The WGA event will take place at Manhattan's Pierre Hotel on February 21, 2004. Tickets cost $150 for Guild members; $200 for non-members.
INFO: Writers Guild of America, East
posted by Egon on Thursday, February 19, 2004

MAKING AMERICAN SPLENDOR
The Writers Guilde of America, East's website transcribes in full a recent panel discussion with directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini and writer Harvey Pekar about the "American Splendor" film adaptation.
INFO: Writers Guild of America, East
posted by Egon on Thursday, February 19, 2004

CHESTER BROWN IN PRESS, ON AIR
Minneapolis, Minnesota's weekly "City Pages" carries a review of Chester Brown's "Louis Riel" in the current issue. Drawn & Quarterly's website further reveals that Brown will appear on WAMC's "The Roundtable" program on Monday, February 23rd. WAMC programs are broadcast online via the station's website.
INFO: City Pages
INFO: Drawn & Quarterly
INFO: WAMC
posted by Egon on Thursday, February 19, 2004

BUKATMAN'S McCAY BIO
In a piece about Scott Bukatman's recent pop culture-themed book, "Matters of Gravity," the Stanford Report reveals that the associate professor's next project will be "a biography of turn-of-the-century cartoonist Winsor McCay, creator of the Little Nemo comic strip, whose 1914 film Gertie the Dinosaur was one of the first animated cartoons."
INFO: Stanford Report
posted by Egon on Thursday, February 19, 2004

STURM'S ACADEMY
In a post to the National Assocation of Comic Art Educators' message board, NACAE Director James Sturm briefly outlined plans to open the Center for Cartoon Studies and Related Ephemera in White River Junction, VT: "I hesitate to add too much more additional information at this time, leases need to be finalized, etc., etc…. That said, I am confident that the Center For Cartoon Studies and Related Ephemera will be located in the wonderful old railroad town of White River Junction, Vermont, opening our doors in the Fall of 2005 with a class of 20. It will be a two year program. It is not a graduate school so anyone with a high school diploma is eligible to apply. I'm hoping there will be a fair number of applicants that have either finished their undergraduate degree or left another institution out of frustration." A provisional website for the Center has been established.
INFO: NACAE
INFO: Center for Cartoon Studies and Related Ephemera
posted by Egon on Tuesday, February 17, 2004

SEATTLE TIMES ON COMPLETE PEANUTS
The Seattle Times covers the upcoming first volume in Fantagraphics' "Complete Peanuts" series, speaking with publisher Gary Groth and Charles Schulz's widow Jeannie about the goals and challenges of the project. "I had the clear impression that our goals were the same," Groth says, "which was to preserve ([Charles] Schulz's) legacy and just sort of reclaim the work from the vast merchandising machine." Groth notes characteristic differences evident in Schulz's early "Peanuts" strips: "One of the things I really love about it is how Charlie Brown evolves from a mischief-maker into this kind of melancholy figure. There's a bunch of strips where he actually gets the better of the other kids. That goes away later on in the strip."
INFO: The Seattle Times
posted by Egon on Tuesday, February 17, 2004

FBI: LOCAS COMING, AND MORE
The "Crystal Eightball" section of Fantagraphics Books' website has been updated to broadly reveal plans for several upcoming books and comics. Fantagraphics announces "Locas," a book collection of Jaime Hernandez's Maggie and Hopey stories from "Love & Rockets." The volume is expected to be "at least 700 pages long," and is due this coming summer. Fantagraphics further announces "The Bush Junta," an upcoming anthology co-edited by Mack White and promising "a no-holds-barred look at the Bush administration" by cartoonists including Kim Dietch, Bill Griffith, Ted Jouflas, Carol Lay, Spain, Seth Tobocman, and others. The publisher notes several books due in early 2005, including: "The Complete King" by Ho Che Anderson, "featuring an extensively reworked version of the long-ago-released Volume 1;" a collection of short strips by Max Andersson; Charles Burns' "Bad Vibes," completing the Burns library; and a collection of Roger Langridge's "Fred the Clown" stories, among other books. On periodicals: "Schizo" #4 is planned for spring 2004, and "Eightball" #23 will be released this summer, barring scheduling conflicts with Daniel Clowes' current film project. "'Acme Novelty Library' #16, featuring the long-awaited debut of the 'Rusty Brown' graphic novel, is scheduled for Spring 2005." Fantagraphics further reveals that NBM will publish a domestic edition of Lewis Trondheim's "Mister O," a collection of silent shorts.
INFO: Fantagraphics Books
posted by Egon on Sunday, February 15, 2004

LIBÉRATION BD SPECIAL ONLINE
The January 22 issue of France's Libération, a copiously illustrated 56-page BD special timed to coincide with this year's Angoulême fesitval, is now available online as an Adobe "Acrobat" file. The issue is illustrated throughout by numerous cartoonists including Edmond Baudoin, Christophe Blain, Blutch, Dupuy & Berbérian, Killofer, Thomas Ott, Marjane Satrapi, Lewis Trondheim, Willem and others. The issue's 12-page "Livres" section is given over to BD, including articles, reviews and interviews covering Malaysian comics, J. C. Menu, Yoshiharu Tsuge, and several other subjects.
INFO: Libération
posted by Egon on Sunday, February 15, 2004

CAA: THE CASE FOR COMICS
James Sturm will chair "The Case for Comics," a panel at this upcoming weekend's annual College Art Assocation conference in Seattle, WA. The panel will take place February 19 and will include presentations by Christina Donner, Christian Hill, Joel Priddy and Ted Stearn. The College Art Association was founded in 1911 to promote "excellence in scholarship and teaching in the history and criticism of the visual arts and in creativity and technical skill in the teaching and practices of art," among other goals.
INFO: College Art Association
posted by Egon on Sunday, February 15, 2004

SOPH GETS, GIVES INK
The Sunday New York Times Art & Design section profiles Sophie Crumb upon the recent publication of "Belly Button Comix" #1. "If you compare me to [Robert Crumb], I'll stop drawing right away," Sophie Crumb told the Times. "He's the best, so how can I be like that?" Crumb, who currently lives in California, has begun work on a second issue of "Belly Button Comix" and "plans to travel to New York later this year to become an apprentice tattooist."
INFO: The New York Times
posted by Egon on Sunday, February 15, 2004