SUNDAY PRESS: NEW NEMO, MORE
Peter Maresca's Sunday Press Books will publish a second volume of "Little Nemo" comics and is preparing a multi-volume series surveying newspaper comic strips from 1895 through 1960, Publishers Weekly reports. The next "Little Nemo" book will cover 1910 through 1914, "after [the strip] moved from the New York Herald (1905–1910) to William Randolph Hearst's New York American in 1910... as well as the 1924–1926 revival of the strip." The book is due in summer 2007. Maresca's other planned series, "The Best American Newspaper Comics," will eventually span "seven or eight volumes." The series will feature "all the stuff that's disappearing from newspaper archives," says Maresca.
INFO: Publishers Weekly
posted by Egon on Wednesday, September 06, 2006

"LITTLE LIT" ON BOOKWORM
Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman appeared on the August 17 episode of KCRW's "Bookworm" to discuss "Big Fat Little Lit," a new anthology collecting work from the three-volume "Little Lit" series of comics for children.
INFO: KCRW Bookworm
posted by Egon on Wednesday, September 06, 2006

GARY PANTER TOMES GESTATE
Gary Panter's website announces that PictureBox Inc. will publish a two-volume retrospective of Panter's work. Panter describes the book as a "huge, exhaustive, expensive, never-ending, tell-all, 2-volume, made in the USA (not really) Big Book of Gary (not real name)." The book is due "about a year from now." Panter notes that his DalTokyo strip will also be published "sometime next year." DalTokyo appears monthly in "Riddim," a Japanese reggae magazine, and is excerpted in Kramers Ergot 6.
INFO: Gary Panter
posted by Egon on Wednesday, September 06, 2006

SCOTT McCLOUD RADIO
Scott McCloud appeared on the September 5 episode of the Leonard Lopate Show to discuss his just released book "Making Comics." The segment is available online as a downloadable mp3 file. McCloud and his family, with whom he is touring to promote the book, were also interviewed for the August 23 "Fanboy Radio" podcast.
INFO: WNYC: Leonard Lopate
INFO: Fanboy Radio
posted by Egon on Wednesday, September 06, 2006

SYSTÈME DE LA BD IN ENGLISH FOR 2007
The University Press of Mississippi announces that an English language translation of Theirry Groensteen's "Système de la Bande Dessinée" is due in February 2007. The text, translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen and to be published as "The System of Comics," is described as "a groundbreaking work on comics by one of the medium's foremost scholars" featuring "coherent, overarching theory of comics, a 'system' that both builds on existing studies of the 'word and image' paradigm and adds innovative approaches of his own." Groensteen has authored several books about comics, has edited "Cahiers de la Bande Dessinée" and has served as director of the Musée de la Bande Dessinée. He currently edits 9e Art Magazine and heads the "Editions de l'An 2" publishing house, among other credits. "Système de la Bande Dessinée" is based upon Groensteen's doctoral work.
INFO: University Press of Mississippi
LINK: Thierry Groensteen
posted by Egon on Saturday, September 02, 2006

VQR: SPIEGELMAN SERIAL RETURNS
Art Spiegelman's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@?*!" returns to the Virginia Quarterly Review in the journal's Fall 2006 issue. The issue, which features a cover by Spiegelman, will be available in early October.
INFO: Virginia Quarterly Review
posted by Egon on Saturday, September 02, 2006

"TELLING TALES" IN NYC
New York City's Adam Baumgold Gallery will show "Telling Tales: Contemporary Women Cartoonists," an exhibit curated by Dan Nadel, from September 6 through October 14, 2006. The show will include work by Geneviève Castrée, Roz Chast, Jessica Ciocci, Julie Doucet, Debbie Drechsler, Anke Feuchtenberger, Renée French, Phoebe Gloeckner, Megan Kelso, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Amy Lockhart, Diane Noomin, Jenni Rope, Dori Seda, Anna Sommer, Carol Tyler and Lauren R. Weinstein. On his "Comics Comics" blog, Nadel notes: "I'm normally averse to comics shows and particularly to gender-specific shows of anything, but, given the lack of recognition given to all of the below artists, it seemed like it might be a good idea. There's been a lot of hoopla about the lack of women in the Masters of American Comics exhibition opening in New York in September, most of which I think is misguided. There aren't any because, for most of the century comics were created almost exclusively by men. There's no way around that. But, by opening my little show at the same time as the Masters show, hopefully audiences can see that, yes, female cartoonists do indeed exist." The Adam Baumgold Gallery will host an opening reception the evening of September 6.
INFO: Adam Baumgold Gallery
INFO: Comics Comics
posted by Egon on Saturday, September 02, 2006

EARLY SCHULZ WORK COLLECTED
Nat Gertler announces that his About Comics imprint will publish "Schulz’s Youth," a "complete collection of Schulz’s work for Warner Press." The book will include "all the teenager cartoons which he did for Youth magazine, plus all the kid cartoons he did for the book Two-by-Fours, and perhaps a few stray other items... [There] have been books collecting some of this work before (the last one saw print in the 1980s), but never a complete collection. There will be over 250 cartoons in this book, all from the mid-1950s through mid-1960s." The book is due in May 2007
INFO: The AAUGH blog
posted by Egon on Thursday, July 27, 2006

FRANK KING SUNDAYS, MAULDIN BOOKS
In 2007 Fantagraphics will publish "the first of a series of books reprinting Bill Mauldin's cartoons," Publishers Weekly reports in a piece covering the recent Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. The same article reveals that Drawn & Quarterly and Sunday Press Books will co-publish "an oversized book of Frank King's Gasoline Alley Sunday strips, in the same format as last year's Little Nemo collection."
INFO: Publishers Weekly
posted by Egon on Thursday, July 27, 2006

EISNER AWARDS GIVEN
The Pulse website lists winners of this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, given Friday, July 21, at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. The Eisner Awards are nominated by a panel and voted upon by members of the American comic book industry. Additionally, Vaughn Bode, Ramona Fradon, Russ Manning and Jim Steranko were voted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame alongside judges' selections Floyd Gottfredson and William Moulton Marston. Alvin Schwartz and Harvey Kurtzman were honored with the 2006 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, and R. Kikuo Johnson won the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award.
INFO: Pulse
INFO: The Eisner Awards
posted by Egon on Saturday, July 22, 2006

DICK TRACY TO BE COLLECTED
IDW Publishing will publish books collecting Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy," the Pulse website reports. "The collections will have introductions from consulting editor and Dick Tracy expert, Max Allan Collins." The project was announced at a "Dick Tracy" panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.
INFO: Pulse
LINK: IDW Publishing
posted by Egon on Friday, July 21, 2006

COCHRAN LAUNCHES EC ARCHIVES
Russ Cochran and Gemstone Publishing will launch "The EC Archives," a new, complete reprinting of EC Comics in a series of hardcover volumes, according to a press release carried by Comic Book Resources. "Weird Science Volume One kicks off the series in October with a 212-page hardcover volume collecting the first six issues of the legendary Sci-Fi comics series... Each volume will also include all of the original EC advertisements, editorial pieces, and even letters pages." The comics will all be re-colored for these editions: "The EC Archives editions will present these stories with all-new colors based on the originals, but utilizing new methods of shading and texture to enhance and improve each story’s impact." Subsequent volumes collecting each of EC's titles will continue to be published through the end of 2006 and throughout 2007. Each volume will cost $49.95. Cochran has also recently published a four-volume set collecting EC's "Picto-Fiction" line, in a format consistent with the other volumes in his "Complete EC Library." The set includes eighteen previously unpublished Picto-Fiction stories.
INFO: Comic Book Resources
INFO: EC Crypt
posted by Egon on Friday, July 14, 2006

MORE CRUMB BOOKS PLANNED
In addition to a previously announced status report regarding Robert Crumb's in-progress graphic novel adaptation of "Genesis," the newsletter for the Crumb Products website notes several other upcoming books. "German publisher Taschen will release a fairly large book entitled 'R Crumb's Sex Obsessions' early next year. There will also be a book entitled 'R Crumb's Sweeter Side' released later this year by MQ Publishing (the same company who published The R Crumb Handbook). Aline has written a book called 'Need More Love,' a graphic memoir to be released February 14th 2007 at the New York public Library. MQ Publishing Company is doing the books."
INFO: Crumb Products
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

INTERVIEWING SCOTT McCLOUD
Scott McCloud has already granted several interviews occasioned by the forthcoming publication of "Making Comics." Topics discussed in his interview with the Webcomics Examiner include McCloud's "four dominant ways of looking at comics." McCloud tells Boston's Phoenix about conventional differences between traditional American comics and those of other cultures: "Comics evolved out of stage plays, out of the idea that you’re sitting in the front row of the audience and they’re performing in these little vaudeville boxes just for you. Characters in American comics are more likely to face out. I thought that was interesting when I started. We face the audience more in American comics than characters do in Japanese and European comics." McCloud speaks with PopMatters more specifically about online comics, but notes that his next project will be "a graphic novel based on a story that I've had in mind for more than 20 years... It'll probably run to about 400-500 pages and it'll be a true graphic novel."
INFO: Webcomics Examiner
INFO: The Phoenix
INFO: PopMatters
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

BECHDEL'S "FUN HOME" IN THE TIMES
Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home" was featured in the June 18 New York Times Book Review. Sean Wilsey calls the book "a pioneering work, pushing two genres (comics and memoir) in multiple new directions, with panels that combine the detail and technical proficiency of R. Crumb with a seriousness, emotional complexity and innovation completely its own." The website for Powell's runs a video clip of Bechdel explaining her process for constructing the book.
INFO: The New York Times
INFO: Powell's
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

ANDELMAN EISNER ADDENDA
Bob Andelman, author of the biography "Will Eisner: A Spirited Life," has started an website running supplementary interviews he continues to conduct regarding Eisner, often including responses to material published in his book. The most recent interview is with Drew Friedman, who discusses his years as a student at SVA, among other topics.
INFO: A Spirited Life Interview Series
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

SATRAPI VQR PREVIEW CONT'D.
The Summer 2006 issue of Virginia Quarterly Review continues that magazine's preview of Marjane Satrapi's "Chicken with Plums." The book, which won a Prix d'Angoulême award in the original French, is due for publication in an English-language edition by Pantheon later this year.
INFO: Virginia Quarterly Review
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

SPAIN COMICS IN JEWISH CURRENTS
Recent episodes of CITR radio's "Inkstuds" program are available online as podcasts, including an interview with Spain Rodriguez. Rodriguez notes that he is currently producing historical comics for Jewish Currents magazine in collaboration with writer Joel Schechter.
INFO: Inkstuds
INFO: Jewish Currents
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

EDDIE CAMPBELL: GUEST BLOGGER
Eddie Campbell appeared as a guest blogger on the Powell's website the week of June 19 through 23. Campbell's posts include full-color artwork.
INFO: Powell's
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006

MoCCA PODCASTS ONLINE
The Indie Spinner Rack website carries several podcasts recorded during the MoCCA Art Festival in New York. These include audio recordings of Charles Burns's on-stage conversation with Adrian Tomine and a panel featuring contributors to the Mome anthology.
INFO: Indie Spinner Rack
posted by Egon on Thursday, June 29, 2006