the amazing ASIFA-Hollywood Animation website lists ten great things you should study in depth:

01 Carlo Vinci

02 Grim Natwick

03 Clair Weeks

04 Advice For CG Animators

05 Originality vs Ripoffs

06 Milton Caniff

07 Modern Animation

08 Writing Cartoons

09 Cultural Literacy

10 Milt Gross

No really. I saw SKIDOO, the long suppressed all-star Otto Preminger bacchanal, thanks to Mark Evanier and circumstance, and you must see it to believe the LSD prison Riot of 1968, with Frank Gorshin, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Michael Constantine, Slim Pickens, Jackie Gleason and Richard Kiel. And Carol Channing in a pirate outfit boarding the yacht of a gangster named “God”, played by Groucho Marx. And then there’s the final shot of Groucho smoking a joint.

And the hippies.

The late Sixties were an odd time in pop culture, as the oldsters attempted to understand and cash in on what the youngsters were doing with their drugs and sex and loud music. (The youngsters have always been into drugs, sex and loud music, of course, but they never really had the leisure time and media exposure to exploit it properly until the 60s.) The “Way to Eden” episode of the original Star Trek was another attempt to deal with ” hippies.” All such attempts were doomed to be very embarassing period pieces.

SKIDOO, directed by a very obviously high Otto Preminger, is a product of that culture clash; but so is THE PRISONER. If you like Rudy Gernreich (inventor of the topless” bathing suit” and hippies and Carol Channing, SKIDOO is a MUST.

Mark Evanier has made getting SKIDOO out on DVD a minor crusade at his blog — the movie is rarely shown since the Preminger Estate thinks that releasing it would be bad for his reputation. Apparently being one of the most notoriously demanding and unpleasant people to work with in Hollywood doesn’t count.

After all this, you might think we would be joining Evanier’s crusade to get SKIDOO out on DVD.

But we’re not.

You see, there need to be some mysteries. Some final doorways; some limits. SKIDOO is shown once every year or so on Turner Classic Movies. That makes it rare, special and vibrant. To be able to watch it whenever you wanted would just make it dumb. And yes of course you can download a bootleg copy right now…but…you get my drift.

Link above; The SKIDOO trailer.

It’s here! The Beat’s annual survey of comics professionals, journalists and respected hangers on covering the biggest events of 2007 and where they think things are going in 2008. As always, thanks to all who took the time from their busy schedules to participate. The response was overwhelming, and we’re breaking the survey answer s into two parts once again. Get a hot foamy beverage — or perhaps a cold frosty one — sit back and enjoy. PS: If you look closely there are some news hints and teases within.

Lea Hernandez: Rumble Girls: Runaway Lightning Ohmry, Ironclad Petal (stiiiiill), a book about the fire that destroyed my house (it’ll be the funniest book about a house fire ever!), monetizing my comics since they have a huh-yuge readership and a low earning level, and a short-story serial strip with my long-time muse Nan 1^1. And something Big. And getting my daughter tested into high school. Guess which one is the most stressful. No, go on. Guess.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2007? It’s not a dream, not an imaginary story, and not a fad: Women and girl comics fans and pros talking about comics critically, socially, and artistically. Making comics. Still.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2008? Tori Amos’ Comic Book Tattoo, set to debut at SDCCI 2008. Tori Amos’ songs as interpreted by many kickass comics creators. Cast of many tens, edited by Rantz Hosley. I’m in it.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2008? Making more money. Wait, that’s not guilty, that’s just pleasure. A tray of baklava? Dangit, I just don’t have any pleasures I feel guilty about. I’m still embarassed by those naked pix of Daniel Radcliffe. Wait! I have it: cosplay. Don’t send help.

Ben Templesmith: More FELL from Image comics ( Yes, honest! #9 is complete and will be out early next year just for starters! ) WORMWOOD: CALAMARI RISING and if I can manage it, WORMWOOD: BINGO NIGHT IN VALHALLA from IDW Publishing, as well as DEADSPACE from Image and quite possibly something a bit different from me called THE CENTURY, some book covers, album covers perhaps from the looks of things…plus a bunch of stuff I already forget. I blame the drinking.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2007? I thought it was going to be my part time job as a Princess Leia Slave Girl model at SDCC, but apparently not. I’d have to go with it being the year comics solidify their success at being half decent successful movies that actually embrace the art and artists and start taking advantage of some of that on screen…which seems obvious for some projects considering comics are a visual medium as much as a literary one. Hopefully a continuing trend on the projects where it would make sense to do so. Apart from that, I have no idea, as I’ve been blissfully ignorant of most goings on thanks to travel and work schedule which meant I had no life whatsoever.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2008? The pessimist in me expects it to be how well the biz fairs in the coming recession. US economy looks to be in for some rough times ahead. The other story might be just how lax US immigration has become, I mean, apparently they’re letting me in early next year for an extended period. The fools, the fools! They know not what they do!

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2008? Being able to crash at my own house at next years SDCC. Being in the next room from some of the people I work with, rather than 16 hours in the future on another continent ( hmm, that might not be such a good thing come to think about it! ) and generally knuckling down and getting a lot of projects under my belt. 2008 is the year of 400+ pages for me.

Rikki Simons, ShutterBox Book Five with Tavisha, which we’re now three months behind on. Which means we’re on schedule.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2007? Probably something to do with Neil Gaiman, or Alan Moore, or that Sin City guy, or some movie adaptation, or manga becoming more popular with kids, or a tawdry comic cover, or a legitimate magazine talking up comics’ legitimacy, or some poor shop owner being arrested.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2008? I don’t know. What’s been the biggest story for the past ten years? See above.

Maybe Tokyopop promotional events will stop feeling like a cross between an orca show at Sea World and a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Now that would be a big story. To me at least.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2008? Finishing ShutterBox Book Six and then walking off the Golden Gate Bridge. Ha-ha! Oh, me. I’ll settle for Guild Wars 2 or Eve-Online implementing playable human avatars.
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We refrain from too much current events here, but the continuing story of the death of Benazir Bhutto has a tiny little comic book connection that adds to the poignancy of it all. If you saw the news this weekend, you’ll recall that Bhutto’s 19-year-old son Bilalwal Zardari has been named the symbolic head of her political party. This reminiscence in the UK Times by her friend Mahnaz Malik reveals Bilawal is one of us:

Bilawal is 19 years old, only a decade my junior, yet I cannot help but think of him as a child. I have always known him as one of Benazir’s three children, for whom she and I drove around London buying Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books.

Malik goes on to say:

I remember him as a shy, bespectacled teenager, often looking after his sisters. He was a film buff and I would struggle to choose a film that he had not seen when we all went to the cinema. Bibi was keen on reading and bought books by the boxful. But she was broadminded enough to realise that teenage tastes can vary. I remember one summer, we spent the entire afternoon at a comic book shop near Russell Square as Bilawal, with his sisters, completed their collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel comic books. Bibi patiently accompanied them.

That store sounds a lot like Gosh! In all the tragedy and tumult of these sad times, the idea of someone whose will find a place in history beside Anwar Sadat, Indira Gandhi and Archduke Francis Ferdinand going to the comics shop to buy comics for her kid is perhaps a fitting one for this day and age.

UPDATE: Bilawal’s comic-book reading ways are now being held against him, along with several other drawbacks:

The call came as supporters of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party expressed dismay at the naming of her 19-year-old, comic book-collecting son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and his allegedly corrupt father, Asif Ali Zardari, as her successors.

We attended a nice holiday party last night thrown by artist Kelli Bickman and jill-of-all-trades Paulette Powell. It was just a bunch of folks getting together, but it was nice to see old friends like Kyle Baker, Martha Thomases and Jim Salicrup and have a chance to talk a bit. We also chatted with Anne Murphy, the widow of Archie Goodwin, whom we hadn’t seen in forever.

In case you don’t know, Archie Goodwin was a writer and an editor who died at the much too young age of 60 in 1998. Archie ran Creepy, Eerie, Marvel Comics (he preceded Jim Shooter as Editor in Chief), founded Epic, and edited many great stories at DC. He also wrote Star Wars and Manhunter. But that’s just the tip of his resume. He’s pretty much considered probably the best comic book editor ever, and one of the very best writers as well. Archie was always kind and patient with the very young and annoying Beat, and for that we are always grateful. In later years, when we had grown up a bit, at local functions, Anne was usually by his side. She was a former editor at Redbook, and as smart, feisty and creative a lady as you would ever want to meet and we remember having many interesting conversations over the years with her.

It was truly a pleasure to see her again, and hear her talk about Archie, and also many episodes of comics history from the 70s through the 90s from a very different perspective. Sadly we can’t repeat most of them here, but there was one about a 70s comic book artist–let’s call him Timmy– who showed up at the house of a rival artist with a couple of goons, only to be met at the door by the rival’s wife and child. Timmy then called his rival and said “I know what your wife and kid look like!” News of this incident spread and Timmy didn’t get much work for a long time.

These days, the internet has lessened the distance between people who work on the comics and people who read the comics to the point where there barely is any. Talking to Anne was a sharp reminder that there have always been larger than life personalities and creative dramas in comics. They didn’t have message boards to duke it out on, so they did things in a more colorful way. Those were the days.

Tim Hensley, Jonathan Bennett, Todd Hignite, Alvin Buenaventura and Ken Parille have united for a new blog called simply Blog Flume. Thus far they are blogging up a storm! Topics covered: Bennett on the bird paintings of Charley Harper, Parille on the cartoons of Abner Dean, and an utterly fantastic slideshow by Hensley on the work of early 20th century Manga master Suiho Tagawa

Our recap of the Z-Cult affair for PWCW yesterday had this quote from Todd Allen:

“There is a very real possibility that torrents, effectively advertising in this case, have been a factor in sales spikes. People will want a physical copy of an inherent physical product. Crossgen did the research on this 5 years ago and went under before they had a chance to properly implement that research.”

CrossGen! There’s a blast from the past. Their “all freelancers will work in the same office” set-up drew constant Jonestown jokes, but they were ahead of the curve on a lot of things, like the downloadable comics model initiative to post their comics to the web, which they called, amazingly, “Comics on the Web”. In fact someone sent us this link at an article from 2002 on how their implementation of comics downloads had an immediate impact on sales:

Less than 30 days after the launch of CrossGen’s Comics on the Web, retail sales of CrossGen’s comics and trade paperbacks are taking an upward turn, with much of it taking place the week after the launch of Comics on the Web, according to recent sales statistics.

According to figures from Diamond Comic Distributors, first week advance reorders for The Path taken the week after the entire issue was posted for free on CrossGen’s Comics on the Web increased by 54 percent over the level taken for CrossGen’s Sojourn Prequel, which was not posted online prior to its release. In addition, the second week reorders, which typically drop by 50 percent after the comic’s release, actually increased by 23 percent for The Path Prequel. Also, advance reorders for The Path #1, still two weeks from being released, rose by 45 percent in the first week after The Path Prequel’s release, and then another 45 percent on top of that the following week, further bucking the trends for low advance reorders before a book is released.

While this still wasn’t enough to save the company’s ambitious, expensive and fondly remembered by some line of comics, it’s still as close as anyone has come to documenting the effect of making issues available for free download online sampling.

As long as we’re talking about Crossgen, we’ll remind everyone that Checker Books is reprinting a lot of their graphic novels, under a license from Disney.

The other day we mentioned the cancellation of the retailer giveaway mag COMICS & GAMES RETAILERS. Former editor John Jackson Miller has his own reminiscences.

The news that Comics & Games Retailer is heading online after 190+ issues in print is circulating — bittersweet news to receive as a longtime editor of that publication, but something that, as an outsider, I’ve expected since editor James Mishler departed this past summer. The truth is, in one way or another, similar repositionings to deal with the realities of the markets it served were a part of every single year for the publication. Producing a free magazine for shop owners for more than a decade and a half required a readiness to adapt the product to follow opportunities, wherever they happened to lead.

It’s an interesting look back at the dark days of comics, when branching out into games, collectible card games and other media was sometimes the only way for retailers — and the magazines that served them — to survive.

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Click for more.

You can spend hours and hours and hours pouring through the wonders at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, a vast resource of information on and art by a who’s who of animation/comics/illustrations notables. In fact there’s even a Hall of Fame! Educate yourself. And support them. One reason? This archive of Gustaf Tenggren’s THE LITTLE TRAPPER and other classic Golden Books.

Or this reprint of the illustrations from a 1945 Coronet magazine. The above is by Vera Bock.

Check out the blog for more reasons to support this amazing resource.

A big huzzah to Comicraft, who just celebrated their 15th Anniversary. We talked to Richard Starkings a few years ago for our first book BREAKING THE PANELS and he may have given the most thoughtful and non-comics-related answers out of all the people interviewed.

To commemorate the occassion, Comicraft has unveiled a new font, convenientally called COMICRAFT.

Starkings has this to say in the anniversary presser released by Comicraft.

“JG and I feel very fortunate to have worked with so many top talents in the industry during the last fifteen years,” said Starkings, “and we feel really honored to have been able to contribute to so many great books. We’re very proud of our track record and we’re continuing to invest the same level of quality and commitment into our own titles and websites, and the fonts we make available at comicbookfonts.com.”

Congratulations to Richard, JG and all the other folks involved with the company.

Posted by Mark Coale

Via Mark Evanier. Shot by Lee Hester.

Mark Evanier reports the death of Paul Norris, the co-creator of Aquaman.

Ohio-born Norris studied art before ending up at DC in 1940:

A year later, he was at DC Comics where his most memorable assignment was Aquaman, which he and editor-writer Mort Weisinger created. (DC now puts a “created by Paul Norris” credit on all Aquaman comics. The absence of Weisinger’s name is apparently a legal problem on DC’s end, not a case of Norris squeezing out his former collaborator.) Paul also worked on, among others, the Sandman in Adventure Comics. He was the artist who revamped the character from his old costume — a business suit and a device that looked like a gas mask — and turned him, at editorial insistence, into a Batman knock-off. When Norris left the strip, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby took it over. During this period, Paul also worked on the Vic Jordan newspaper strip for the New York Daily PM.

Tom Spurgeon has more here.

This Sunday, one of the last living Golden Age cartoonists, Creig Flessel will be presented with the Sparky Award at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, 142 Throckmorton Avenue. Andrew Farrago writes:

On Sunday, October 28, Creig Flessel is receiving the Cartoon Art Museum’s Sparky Award at a ceremony in Mill Valley, CA. The Northern California branch of the National Cartoonists Society should be pretty well-represented there, and Jeannie Schulz plans to attend, as well. I’ll be conducting a brief interview session with Creig before the award ceremony.

Flessel is 95, and has a long career as a cartoonist and illustrator behind him. How far back does he go? He drew the covers of DETECTIVE before there was a Batman.

More info in the jump.
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Exciting yet offensive, like so much in life, About Comics is bringing back the legendary CAPTIAN BILLY’S WHIZ BANG:

Its naughty nature and popularity made it the South Park of its day. Its legend has been kept alive by the musical The Music Man, which points to it as a corruptor of youth. Racy by the standards of its day (and politically incorrect by the standards of ours), few folks today have actually read an issue, but now they’ll get a chance. About Comics is bringing back Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang with a reprint of the February, 1922 issue of this classic magazine.

Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang styled itself as “America’s Magazine of Wit, Humor, and Filosophy.”Published and edited by Captain Billy Fawcett, a veteran of World War I and the Spanish-American War, the digest-sized magazine features lots of jokes, poems, and Captain Billy’s own commentary on the world and his travels therein. From the moment the issue opens by referring to Cuba as “the land of liberty,”you know you’ve opened a time capsule. The editorial railing against Prohibition, the movie gossip pages filled with names like Arbuckle, Pickford, Fairbanks and Von Stroheim, and the casual racism of the humor all paint a picture of a different time.

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Oh man, we can just imagine the internet chatter about this lengthy profile of Rob Liefeld in the OC Weekly:

To this day, Liefeld is described as “controversial”—it’s one of the first things you’ll see on his Wikipedia page—but he isn’t quite sure why. “I ask people, but no one really has a good answer,” he says. “It’s just one of those things, like, ‘I’m controversial!’ I’ve never gotten out of a limousine without my underwear on. I haven’t been pulled over for any DUIs. . . . I think the success that I had when I was young ticked a lot of people off because they eventually told me so.”

Pages and pages more. Fun for everyone, and the author’s email is at the end!

Apparently there is a show of Basil Wolverton art going on in SoCal right now, as the LA Times reports:

CARTOONIST Basil Wolverton’s biomorphic caricatures are anything but pretty. But that didn’t stop him from becoming one of the most influential cartoonists of the 1960s underground comix movement — a movement that included Robert Williams, Art Spiegelman and Robert Crumb. In recognition of that influence, the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana is hosting a retrospective featuring more than 100 Wolverton originals.

In addition to numerous self-explanatory caricatures like “Triangle Head” and “Chicklets Teeth,” the exhibition also includes examples of his early comic-book work from the 1930s; his “Powerhouse Pepper” humor feature, published in Timely, Marvel and Humorama comics; as well as an assortment of rejected and commissioned pieces.

Details:
The Original Art of Basil Wolverton
From the collection of Glenn Bray
Where: Grand Central Art Center, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana

When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; closed Mondays. Through Nov. 11.

Price: Free

Contact: (714) 567-7233, www.grandcentralartcenter.com

§ We’d be completely remiss if we didn’t point out Tom Spurgeon’s comprehensive post on the great cartoonist Bill Mauldin in advance of Fantagraphics’ release of Willie & Joe: The WWII Years.

§ Joey Manley posts a series of very pertinent Merchandise Questions for those looking to self leverage their properties:

Here is a set of questions for those of you who sell, or who would like to sell, merchandise — self-published books, t-shirts, fluffy toys, PVC figures, bumper stickers, posters, prints, etc.

§ Occasional Superheroine write up Monday’s New Voices panel at MoCCA:

I was going to title this post “New Voices: The Next Generation of Female Comics Creators, but if I took anything with me from yesterday’s panel discussion sponsored by the Friends of Lulu and held at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NYC, it was that gender wasn’t the point. These artists are expanding the boundaries and potential of the medium, period.

Beat pal Pepo has one of the finest Spanish-language comics blogs out there, CON C DE ARTE, and today he has a long analysis of the 1983 mini-series SWORD OF THE ATOM by Jan Strnad and Gil Kane, entitled, more or less, “Husbands and Women.” Fire up your Spanish or Google’s to read the rest:

Ayer me llegó el TPB que recopila SWORD OF THE ATOM, una miniserie de cuatro episodios publicada por DC en 1983 (anterior, por tanto, a WATCHMEN y DARK KNIGHT) con guión de Jan Strnad, dibujos de Gil Kane y color de Tom Ziuko, continuada al año siguiente por los mismos autores con tres episodios más. No he podido resistirme a escanear algunas páginas de la memorable escena inicial, con una discusión matrimonial motivada porque el héroe, Ray Palmer alias Atom, descubre a su mujer besándose con otro en el coche. Algo antes de sorprenderla, Ray espera en casa a su mujer, extrañado por su tardanza, mira por la ventana y piensa: “Qué raro, juraría que vi dos luces, y luego… simplemente desaparecieron!”

We could just listen to this all day: Doug Pratt writes to say that he has remastered what seems to be the only extant internet version of the Mighty Marvel Marching society record from the 60s.

Having scoured the Web and YouTube, it seems that my MP3 files from five years ago of the two Marvel Comics records from the 60’s are perhaps the sole sources that everybody has used. It would be great if somehow the original master tapes turned up, or somebody had copies in better shape, but I’ve done what I think is the best possible job of remastering my copies. “The Voices Of Marvel” is noticeably improved.

First part of the JOnathan Ross BBC special above; links to the next five parts:
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six

Technically, it’s already aired, but bear with us.

Tonight on BBC4, the Jonathan Ross documentary about Steve Ditko finally debuts. (It’s on again at 12.50 AM, which is about 45 minutes from when this is being written).

* BBC4 Homepage for documentary

* Guardian article about the show

By the time many of you read this Monday morning, the special will probably be …. “available” … for viewing outside of Britain, if you know where to look. We’re a little surprised that it’s not up on YouTube already.

posted by Mark Coale

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive presents a treasure trove of old magazine articles on Caniff and Rockwell. Marvelous stuff, just marvelous.

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