ACBD GIVES 20-YEAR PRIZE
The Association des Critiques et des Journalistes de BD (ACBD) marks its twentieth anniversary by giving a special twenty-year prize to "Le Bar du Vieux Français" by Denis Lapière and Jean-Philippe Stassen, chosen from among the twenty previous winners of the organization's annual award. "Le Bar du vieux Français" originally took the ACBD prize in 1993; other previous winners include French editions of "From Hell," "Jimmy Corrigan," and "Understanding Comics." The prize will be awarded to Lapière and Stassen at the Salon du Livre on March 20.
INFO: Univers BD
posted by Egon on Friday, March 12, 2004

COCONINO: FEININGER AND TÖPFFER
Coconino World includes the first part of Rodolphe Töpffer's "Histoire de M. Cryptogramme" in its latest edition, introduced by English-language text explaining the story's initial 1845 serialization in "L'Illustration" magazine. The website also runs eight drawings by Lyonel Feininger, drawn after the style of Viking art for a 1906 book of Norwegian folk tales, as well as contemporary artwork by Sophie Darc and Grégory Elbaz.
INFO: Coconino World
posted by Egon on Friday, March 12, 2004

ONION ON PEANUTS
The Onion's A.V. Club reviews "The Complete Peanuts: 1950 To 1952," due in April from Fantagraphics, and "Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings," published last month by the Charles M. Schulz Museum. "Collecting the three years' worth of single-panel 'Li'l Folks' gag cartoons that Schulz sold to his hometown paper before becoming a syndicated comic-strip artist, Li'l Beginnings is at once more awkward and more sophisticated than the first years of Peanuts," writes Noel Murray. "The drawing evolves from detailed to exquisitely spare, while from the start Schulz's melancholy little kids sit in classrooms and say things like 'My mere presence here indicates I must be out of my mind.'"
INFO: The Onion
posted by Egon on Friday, March 12, 2004

DRAWN & QUARTERLY SURVEYED
The McGill Daily profiles Drawn & Quarterly, noting the company's 14-year history, highlighting recent projects and speaking with publisher Chris Oliveros and publicist Peggy Burns. Burns cites location as key to Drawn & Quarterly's survival: "Montreal really supports the medium. Lots of other cities are cutthroat to live in, but Montreal supports artists more than other cities."
INFO: The McGill Daily
posted by Egon on Friday, March 12, 2004

BLOOD ORANGE: POLKKI SPILLS IT
In a post to the Comics Journal's message board, editor Chris Polkki outlines planned contents for the first four issues of his quarterly anthology series "Blood Orange." The first issue, due in May from Fantagraphics, will include work by "Nicolas Mahler, Rick Altergott, M. Kupperman, Lauren R Weinstein, Typex, Gary Baseman, David Collier, Maaike Hartjes, Allison Cole, Tobias Tak, Dan James, Marc Bell, John Hankiewicz, Kevin Huizenga, Matthew Thurber and Ron Rege, Jr. Most of the stories have never been seen anywhere else." The second issue, due in July, will include work by Jeffrey Brown, Archer Prewitt, and Fabio Viscogliosi, among others. The third and fourth issues will include work by Ted May, Anders Nilsen, Brian Ralph and others, "along with such European artists as Ulf K., Pakito Bolino, Caroline Sury, Helge Reumann, Katja Tukiainen, Alex Baladi, Olivier Douzou and Olaf Ladousse."
INFO: The Comics Journal
posted by Egon on Tuesday, March 09, 2004

"THE PALACE OF COMICS"
Tom Knechtel compares comics to William Blake's body of work, looking closely at Andy Hartzell's series "Monday" as a work that specifically references Blake's motifs and themes. "The inventive combinations of image and text in the work of comic book artists such as Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman seem indebted to Blake’s view of the integration of word and image as a site of complete freedom, an inheritance that Blake has passed on to them from the medieval artists he admired," writes Knetchel. "It leads one to realize that comic book artists, in their flexibility and inventiveness, are the natural heirs of Blake and of the medieval and Renaissance manuscript illuminators. The various strategies used by artists such as Hartzell, Ware, and Spiegelman to marry text with image have much in common with those used by ancient manuscript painters."
INFO: X-Tra
posted by Egon on Tuesday, March 09, 2004

IWW GRAPHIC HISTORY TK
"Next year [will see] the appearance of a 'graphic story' history of the [Industrial Workers of the World], on the centenary, co-edited by artist Nicole Schulman of the World War 3 Illustrated crowd," Paul Buhle announces in an interview on the "Counterpunch" website. "I think my heart belongs now to comics, and to a related subject, the iconographic revolution of Hieronymous Bosch in the 15th century," says Buhle. "I aspire to more comics projects, republishing old things and creating new ones by scripting for artists." Buhle, a professor at Brown University, is the "the author/editor of nearly thirty books," including the upcoming "From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture."
INFO: Counterpunch
posted by Egon on Tuesday, March 09, 2004

BALLANTINE BOOKS PEKAR
Harvey Pekar has agreed to write three new graphic novels for Ballantine Books, according to a press release carried by Comicon.com's "Pulse" website. The first book, due in fall 2004, will be an autobiographical account of Pekar's experiences surrounding the recent "American Splendor" film. "The second two graphic novels will be biographical, rather than autobiographical, and will be based upon the lives of two fascinating but ordinary individuals that Harvey met during his American Splendor film experience," says editor Chris Schluep. The biographical volumes are tentatively scheduled for fall 2005 and fall 2006. "In addition, Ballantine will publish an anthology of the best of Pekar's previously published stories from his critically acclaimed autobiographical comic book series, American Splendor," in the fall of 2004, the release additionally reads.
INFO: Comicon.com: The Pulse
posted by Egon on Tuesday, March 09, 2004

GET YOUR POST-WAR WAR ON
Riverhead Books will publish a sequel to David Rees' "Get Your War On" this September, according to a press release run by Yahoo Finance. "Get Your War On II includes more than 150 new comics. Rees has been a contributor to Rolling Stone since January 2002. Get Your War On II will collect the comics that have appeared in every issue of Rolling Stone, along with never-before-published comics appearing for the first time in this book." Says Rees: "I'm excited to publish Get Your War On II with Riverhead. As the presidential election approaches, we must steel ourselves for a tsunami of bullsh*t. Let Get Your War On II be your umbrella." Riverhead previously published Rees' "My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable" and "My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable."
INFO: Yahoo Finance
posted by Egon on Tuesday, March 09, 2004