The future is now!

Via The Forbidden Planet International Blog, information on the “Official Selections” for Angouleme ‘08.

Next to the Official Selection (of which a full list and annotations can be found here in French and here in English), the festival presents its shortlist for the Prix du Patrimoine (again listed here on the official site in French and here in English), which is awarded to the best re-edition of the year. This year, this list includes work by Robert Crumb (”Mes Problèmes Avec Les Femmes”), Jules Feiffer (”Je Ne Suis Pas N’importe Qui”), and the collected editions of “Moomin” and “Spirou Et Fantasio”.

Why not end the week by reading New York mag’s preview of I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason.

We totally missed the announcement, but luckily Johanna caught it! In an historic example of détente, Fantagraphics, D&Q, Checker and IDW are teaming up! For Classic Comic Strips month, and an oversized promotional sampler:

This full-color 11″ x 17″ tabloid is a spectacular showcase of some of the finest comics art of the last century and a collector’s item in the making! Designed like an old-time classic newspaper comic strip supplement, Comic Strip Masterpieces will feature superb reproductions of some of the very finest Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, Dennis the Menace, Flash Gordon, Yellow Kid, and Popeye strips, including many stunning full-color Sunday pages! There will also be a “sequel” of sorts to the hugely popular Unseen Peanuts (an annotated spread of Peanuts strips from the upcoming ninth volume of Complete Peanuts that have never been reprinted since their original newspaper release almost 40 years ago), as well as biographical notes on the cartoonists, a checklist of classic comic strip reprints, and more. Reading Comic Strip Masterpieces will be like traveling back in time to an era when comic strips were actually good!

Flog notes that Gary Panter’s JIMBO’S INFERNO has won an American Book Award, presented each year by the Before Columbus Foundation for books of merit.

The American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions.

This is the second Fantagraphics book to garner an ABA — Joe Sacco’s Palestine was a recipient in 1996, and the award at that time very much helped solidfy Palestine’s place in the pantheon of great graphic novels. Here’s hoping Panter’s has a similar affect, I can’t think of a more deserving artist.

Rounding up a bunch of photos or cartooners spotted about the globe, conquering all in their path.

Via Jeff Newelt, photos from the Paul Pope Diesel Party in Hollywood celebrating the release of PULPHOPE
and debuting new original PP screenprints on sale at Diesel’s Melrose location:

Pope, James Jean and David Silverman, director of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE.
(more…)

Al Columbia’s cover for MOME 10. [Via Flog]

Via Flog:

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is pleased to welcome to Seattle the cartoon genius that is Joe Sacco. This Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, Fantagraphics celebrates the publication of “Palestine: The Special Edition” with two extraordinary events.

On Friday, October 26 from 7:00 - 9:00 PM we host an exhibition of Joe’s stunning original artwork from “Palestine.” This also marks the world premiere of the deluxe hardcover edition of “Palestine.” It includes supplementary material including photographs, journal entries, sketches and more from his visit to the war torn region 15 years ago - an exquisite, modestly priced volume that is an essential addition to any comics-lovers library. Sacco will be present to sign advance copies.

This Saturday, October at 2:00 PM, Joe will discuss his groundbreaking approach to “comics journalism” in conflicts from the Middle East to the Balkans, as well as his pop culture and autobiographical works. If you haven’t seen Joe speak, you’re in for a treat. This artist is passionate, articulate and entertaining.

Fantagraphics Bookstore is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at the corner of Airport Way S. in Georgetown, just 10 minutes south of downtown Seattle. We’re open every day 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00. Phone: 206,658.0110. Come down and check out our new releases and complete selection of Fantagraphics favorites, including hard-to-find backlist books. See you soon.

FBI will be at SPX in force. Check this FLOG post for even more details here her’es the signing schedule:

FRIDAY:

3:00 Paul Karasik & Bill Griffith
4:00 Paul Karasik & Bill Griffith
5:00 Gilbert Hernandez & Tom Kaczynski
6:00 Gilbert Hernandez & Miss Lasko-Gross
7:00 Kim Deitch & Miss Lasko-Gross

SATURDAY:

11:00 Gilbert Hernandez
12:00 Miss Lasko-Gross & Paul Karasik
1:00 Miss Lasko-Gross & Paul Karasik
2:00 Kim Deitch & Paul Karasik
3:00 Kim Deitch & Tom Kaczynski
4:00 Gilbert Hernandez & Tom Kaczynski
5:00 Gilbert Hernandez & Bill Griffith
6:00 Gilbert Hernandez & Bill Griffith

PANELS:
Friday 6PM: Paul Karasik on Fletcher Hanks
Friday 8PM: Gilbert Hernandez Q&A
Friday 9PM: Bill Griffith at D.C.’s Politics & Prose bookstore
Saturday 12PM: Kim Deitch spotlight
Saturday 4PM: Bill Griffith Spotlight

We almost forget that actress Salma Hayek had a baby girl last week. Congratulations! Valentina Paloma Pinault is the first child for Hayek, 41, and fiancee Francois Henri Pinault, but great training for when Hayek plays mother of god-knows-how-many Luba in The Beat’s imaginary but much dreamed for adaptation of LOVE AND ROCKETS. And maybe even Salma is thinking the same thing: Paloma…Palomar….hm…..

BTW, the previous pictures of Salma Hayak we’ve posted are now the most Googled upon elements of this blog. Sad but true. We’re thinking this is one traffic-raising ploy that most of our readers will enjoy, however.

Cathy Malkasian (Percy Gloom) and Gilbert Hernandez appear tonight at Book Soup in West Hollywood:

WHO: Gilbert Hernandez & Cathy Malkasian
WHAT: Graphic novel signing
WHERE: Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

WHEN: Tuesday, Sept. 25th, 7PM

Municipal parking across the street. Can’t make it? Pre-order a signed book by calling 310.659.3100 or visiting www.booksoup.com

More info.

The New Haven Register weighs in with actual news story about the story of a Connecticut teacher who resigned after parents complained about him giving a 13-year-old a mature reader comic to read. The story confirms that it was, indeed EIGHTBALL #22 which is the book in question. The book shows a topless women and a man putting his hand up a woman’s skirt. Of course, there is much more to the story — it seems the student has been hazed in person and on Facebook*** because the teacher was very popular with other students.

The parents of a freshman student whose teacher resigned after he gave her a sexually explicit illustrated book said Wednesday their daughter has been the target of harassment from fellow students, and they want the school district to do more to clarify the issue with other parents.

The girl’s father, who asked that his family remain anonymous because it has already been the target of criticism, described the graphic novel that English teacher Nate Fisher gave the student as “borderline pornography.”

The book, one of a series of comic book novels by Daniel Clowes, is called “Eightball #22.” It includes references to rape, various sex acts and murder, as well as images of a naked woman, and a peeping tom watching a woman in the shower.

“It’s not even like a gray area,” the father said. “It’s clearly over the line.”

CBLDF head Chalres Brownstein is quoted throughout the story. Reading between thelines, all we can say is that we’re glad that dad wasn’t our dad. That said, it is up to parents to choose what their kids read. While we may think that the Clowesian brand of “rape and…murder” is fine, it may not be fine for all kids.

As for whether the teacher in question can be prosecuted…well, Clowes’ new comic strip running in the NY Times and general reputation as a respected literary figure would certainly make any legal action very interesting. In fact, EIGHTBALL #22 was eventually collected by Random House as the grahpic novel ICE HAVEN, making prosecution seem crazy mad. But sadly, worse things have happened in these United States. If nothing else, this small town tale of a very protective father, a well liked teacher, and a girl harassed by her schoolmates could be something out of…A DANIEL CLOWES COMIC!

If you watch the various news reports up on the internet, it’s clear that the media is making a meal out of this, with the sensational aspects played up. We’ve predicted this before, but we’ll predict it again: once someone who wants ratings actually reads a yaoi manga, we’re in for it.

***Facebook is the devil’s work by the way.

UPDATE: Based on the news video at the below link, it appears that the issue in questions was EIGHTBALL #22, shown at left. I had originally put a picture of Eightball #2 in this post, which IS NOT THE ISSUE IN QUESTION.
Dan Clowes, perverter of children? The comic given by a teacher to a 13 year old as supplemental reading that was deemed lewd was…EIGHTBALL. What’s most interesting from our standpoint about this story is that it did not take place deep in Red State country, but in CONNECTICUT, one of the most liberal bastions of villainy in America.

Inside Eightball are stories with graphic language and nudity and there’s no question it is a magazine with adult content.

Amy Lindgren is a parent and also drives a Guilford school bus. She can’t believe this has happened in her town.

“If that was my daughter that came home and showed this to me I honestly believe my husband would hurt the man,” said Amy.

Stephen Sang was in Fisher’s class and can’t believe a teacher would give that sort of material to a student.

“It’s pretty odd. I mean, I liked him. My first impression was that he was pretty cool,” said Sang.

Fisher may have been too cool for his own good and that’s not what they want in a teacher.

“They were being taken advantage of, in a way,” said Jenny.

Via Matt Silvie in Seattlest:

Police forces from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s department and the Sultan Police department swarmed on the semi-annual Fantagraphics Shoot-out party on Saturday, shutting down the festivities after only a measly two hours of shooting, which wasn’t nearly enough time to shoot all the tvs, computer monitors and lawn mowers hauled out to be shot (see our coverage of the 2005 party here). Apparently, according to these cops, it’s somehow “illegal” to dump a lot of junk on some random unknown stranger’s private property in the woods and shoot it with guns. Wow, really? Who knew?

Some news tidbits items of note gleaned from our voluminous reading habit:

Via various postings at FLOG! The Fantagraphics Books:

§ Dan Clowes new strip MISTER WONDERFUL launches this Sunday 9/16 in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

Mr. Clowes loosely characterizes the serial as a “romance” without offering any other clues about the work. The strip marks the first new major comics work by Clowes since 2004’s “The Death Ray,” published in issue #23 of his ongoing comic book series, Eightball.

2004! This guy is the Travis Charest of the indies. (j/k!)

§ In the above story, it is revealed that there will be a special 10th anniversary edition of GHOST WORLD with a new cover by Clowes.

§ It is also revealed that there will be a second volume of Yale’s Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, edited by Ivan Brunetti, also with a cover by Clowes. GREAT NEWS! That was our favorite general inetrest comics anthology since The Smithsonian book of Comic-Book Comics.

§ Comics Alliance presents various bits of news regarding James Jean and Paul Pope from their panel at Baltimore. Jean is doing a giant backdrop and possibly some street signs for Prada, which can be seen at the Prada store in Soho, New York. At the panel Jean showed off his character designs for the WATCHMEN movie, which sadly, we didn’t see, but one was described to us as “a Vargas-like image of Sally Jupiter.” Pope is also designing a line of clothing for a well-known fashion line! Much more tidits in this report.

§ Finally, via PWCW two new cartoon bios from Hyperion: Amelia Earhart written by Sara Stewart Taylor, artist to be named, and Helen Keller by CCS student Joe Lambert. Thoreau at Walden by John Porcellino is due next April. Below, sketch by Joe Lambert….guess this guy is good!

Via FLOG, a warehouse find:

We recently did an audit of our Comics Journal back issue inventory to compare what’s listed in the online store vs. what we have in our warehouse, and discovered that there were a bunch of issues that were in stock but not listed. So, after a long absence, the following issues are available for purchase once again. Quantities are limited, so order online (tip: search the online store by stock code: #48 is cj048, #133 is cj133, etc.) or call 1-800-657-1100 today!

A listing of the old issues is in the link. cellphone ringtone mata amberingtones arabic from lebmaniafree ringtone armymall cingular t ringtones atfree ringtone verizon audiovoxringtone maria avethomas ringtones j bringtone boys bad cope Map

Blake Bell is celebrating Hernandez Brothers week, and of course you don’t have to ask us twice to join in the fun. Bell is posting mp3’s of a 1989 interview of Gilbert Hernandez by Gary Groth and throwws in a few observations:

Interesting that, in part one, Gilbert name checks Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko as inspirations/influences. And it’s fantastic to see that Gilbert has the work ethic of both those creators. Every time I turn around, Gilbert’s producing new work that is consistently well drawn, with a unique narrative. His latest work is a mini-series for Dark Horse Comics entitled, The Devil You Know. Go here for a preview and “trailer” from the Dark Horse site. In an era where my favourite indie artists seem to produce a book a year, Gilbert also has another full-length graphic novel coming out from Fantagraphics called, Chance In Hell.

We praise Beto’s prolific nature! Praise him with great praise!

FANTAGRAPHICS / COMICON SIGNINGS

THURSDAY
1:00 Craig Yoe
2:00 Craig Yoe
3:00 Gilbert Hernandez * Jaime Hernandez * Mario Hernandez
4:00 Gilbert Hernandez• Jaime Hernandez * Mario Hernandez
5:00 Jordan Crane * Paul Karasik * Josh Simmons
6:00 Jordan Crane * Paul Karasik * Josh Simmons

(more…)

Dash Shaw reports that his next graphic novel will be out early next year from Fantagraphics:

The Bottomless Belly Button / 720 pages / Fantagraphics Books / Spring 2008
Synopsis: A comedy/mystery about the fictional Loony family. Visit the links below for more story information. I started this book when I graduated The School of Visual Arts in 2005. It is my first post-graduation work and my first character-driven story. This book is done and I originally thought it would come out later 2007 but, last I heard, it is now scheduled for Spring 2008.

Sample pages here. It was very hard to pick just one.

When are we getting the details of the Ellison/Groth settlement???? The Comics Journal Message Board continues to issue updates. Here’s the latest from Harlan:

ATTENDEZ!!!!!!!! ANYONE AND EVERYONE

We are attempting to get the Settlement Agreement signed and posted for all of you who’ve been waiting.

To do this, we need to know FOR CERTAIN that the Fantagraphics /
Comics Journal / Journalista! sites have been cleared of all references to the case (EXCEPT for the 2-sentence Court-mandated
advisement we have posted here). That includes any kind of solicitations for auction of, or purchase of, artwork to aid the Fantagraphics Legal Defense Fund.

Those of you who know your way around liks and such, which I do not … I would take it as a GREAT favor if you would flex on over to the Groth-sites and scour exceedingly fine, so we can get the papers memorialized and posted to quell your curiosity.

Kim Thompson for the defense:

We’ve been taking down the donation solicitations (aside from any settlement stipulations, they’re moot anyway now) and missed this one until someone on Ellison’s board pointed it out. So I just had it axed an hour ago. That’s why if you click on it now it says you’re not “authorized to view” it. (Which is a weird way of putting it; I’ve asked Dirk to change that. It’s just a dead link now, NO ONE is “authorized to view it,” there’s nothing to view.)

Neither of the parties is supposed to comment on the settlement or the lawsuit at present so I can’t really address the other parts of the discussion. Everything is proceeding and the settlement should be signed off on and made public soon.

So the way it looks, neither can say anything bad about the other in public any more. So it’s gone from this:

to this

Luckily, we, the public are not under a gag order…yet…

ASIDE: That last photo is copyright Christy Marx, a comics, animation and games writer. In fact, she just wrote a book about that, entitled Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games. We haven’t talked to Christy in forever, but are pleased that we are able to present her skills in capturing kitten kuddling as a means of delivering snark.

Apparently there is to be some announcement re this resolution of this case on Friday, if Harlan Ellison’s cire warnings and hints are to be believed as quoted in the TCJ board thread which is monitoring the situation with Harry Caul-like precision. The best summation is found there:

“Harlan Ellison and Gary Groth: either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.”

Harlan Ellison posted this at his site tonight:

RE: ELLISON v. FANTAGRAPHICS, INC., et al: THE LITIGATION BETWEEN THE PARTIES HAS BEEN RESOLVED. THE PARTIES ARE NOT AT LIBERTY TO DISCUSS THE TERMS OF THE RESOLUTION. AT THIS TIME.

Man that was FAST!

This is gonna be good!

The 2007 MoCCA Arts Festival kicks of this Friday night (June 22nd) with a Paul Hornschemeier Art Show Opening and official MoCCA Kickoff Party at Rocketship in Brooklyn. Then, the Festival opens Saturday morning at 11AM and we have a full slate of author signings all weekend. We have more space than ever at MoCCA this year to make room for all of our latest releases. Stop by and say hi to Comicdom’s beloved Gary Groth as well as our esteemed web guru Mike Baehr (working his first comic convention, so be sure to ask him as many arcane back issue questions as possible). And don’t forget to get your books signed! We’ll have a bunch of great new stuff like our Fletcher Hanks collection, I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS, the latest MOME, Drew Friedman’s THE FUN NEVER STOPS!, Hornschemeier’s aforementioned THREE PARODOXES, Zak Sally’s SAMMY THE MOUSE, Edward Sorel’s JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THINGS COULDN’T GET WORSE, and much more.

Here’s our signing schedule:

SATURDAY:

11:00 Paul Karasik & Glenn Head
12:00 Tom Kaczynski & Kurt Wolfgang & Jonathan Bennett
1:00 Drew Friedman & David Heatley
2:00 Zak Sally & Michael Kupperman
3:00 Miss Lasko-Gross & Paul Hornschemeier
4:00 Ben Catmull & David Sandlin
5:00 R. Kikuo Johnson & John Cuneo

SUNDAY:

11:00 Jonathan Bennett & Tom Kaczynski
12:00 Paul Hornschemeier & Miss Lasko-Gross
1:00 Paul Hornschemeier & John Cuneo
2:00 Paul Karasik & Zak Sally
3:00 Kim Deitch & Michael Kupperman
4:00 Ben Catmull & Kurt Wolfgang
5:00 Glenn Head

We’re quite anxious to read SAMMY THE MOUSE, the new Ignatz title by Zak Sally; if we don’t find a copy in our mailbox this week, we’ll just have to buy one at MoCCA! Sally’s THE RECIDIVIST was one of our favorite indie comics of the last couple of years, and we’re anxious to see how he follows it up with what he says is a funny animal comic. We love funny animals! Why don’t they do more of them these days?

Anyway, in the meantime, Blake Bell has a long interview with Sally about myriad issues:

Blake: Instead of your own printing press, like with your Recidivist books, why go with Fantagraphics/Coconino? How did you make that connection?

Zak: Well, when i finished Recidivist, i’d planned to begin Sammy, but considering that i’d been “planning” Sammy for the previous 6-7 years, actually hunkering down and STARTING it was a pretty daunting idea. I’d been batting around different ideas of format and what have you, figuring i’d just eventually do it on my printing press and release it through La Mano (certainly no one was banging down my door to publish it), but at the same time sort of dreading it.

Putting out your own work is a very liberating and awesome thing to do, but the flip side to that is that it’s a lot more effort and work (and expense) that doesn’t involve the actual writing and drawing of the thing. I was finding it difficult to come up with the energy to…do the whole thing: i just wanted to worry about DOING the WORK.