Schulz Library Blog Launched, Adventures in Cartooning, CCS Crashes MoCCA Arts Fest!
* We at the Center for Cartoon Studies have long benefitted from a magnificent library, the Schulz Library. It’s the most fantastic collection of graphic novels I’ve ever seen in one place, outside of Europe — scratch that. It’s even better than the European libraries, because I can read almost all the books in the Schulz Library!
Add the Schulz Library blog to your daily or weekly online reading; see you there!
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* Speaking of CCS, I’ve been meaning for some time to bring your attention to the latest mainstream book project to emerge from CCS — Adventures in Cartooning by James Sturm and CCS Pioneer Classmates Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederick-Frost (2009, First Second Books).
This is a terrific book — engaging, entertaining, and the sort of painlessly educational experience that makes the countless ‘how to’ books on cartooning pale in comparison. What James, Andrew and Alexis have managed — no small feat — is to make the nuts and bolts of what makes comics work into a breezy, easy fantasy adventure that communicates volumes in the form of play. And that’s as it should be — play with character, play with story, play with lines, play with color and form and the illusion of movement, play with panels, play with the medium itself — and antic and genuinely amusing play at that.
Like Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics (which made the obvious but unprecedented leap of discussing comics via the medium of comics), once read, Adventures in Cartooning has one wondering, “why didn’t anyone think of doing this before?”
Like James, I have shelves bulging with ‘How to Cartoon’ books going back to the very early 1900s, and almost all are rather dogmatic instructional texts, their relative merit and coherence based largely on how appealing the artist/author’s work is on its own terms, and how intensive their breakdown of technique and tools may be. Adventures in Cartooning scales all that back to the real power of comics, by talking candidly about how comics work via the telling of a pretty funny story — which, in the telling, vividly demonstrates the vocabulary, syntax and magic of comics.
This is a marvelous book for all ages, designed for young readers (or to read to youngest readers) — but it’s perfect for any reader of any age seeking to get a grip on how to read comics and graphic novels. As I know from my years of library, school and university lectures, that means plenty of interested adults and elders who can’t seem to find a portal into how to read the medium. This book is for those folks, too!
It’s of course also available at your local bookshops, via your preferred online book buying venues, and so on — where ever you go, make a point of checking Adventures in Cartooning out, and remember it as the perfect gift for birthdays or Christmas gifts in the coming year. You’ll inspire a budding cartoonist, or give the gift of ‘how to read comics’ to someone who needs the inroad.
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* And speaking of CCS and MoCCA, this weekend is the annual MoCCA (Museum of Contemporary Comic Art) Art Festival in NYC, and CCS will be there in force!
I won’t be there, but hey, I don’t do shows anymore. But with the whole of creator creation there, you won’t miss me, I’m sure.
The new generation of cartoonists will be there, with their dancing shoes on and inky fingers flying, and among their numbers are the CCSers — alumni, students, community members — with their new creations!
Where is it?
69th Regiment Armory
68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th and 26th Streets
When is it?
This weekend, June 6th and 7th, 11am-6pm
What’s it cost?
$10 per day
$15 per weekend
MoCCA Members: $10 per weekend
Be sure to bring your eyeballs and some $$ to spend, as the plethora of great new comics and books is sure to jar your preserves.
Among the lineup of personable cartoonists with new work from the CCS community:
But, if you are going to be there, head to Table 803:
* Denis St. John (CCS Class of 2008) will be at the table with his brand-spanking-new issue of Monsters & Girls, which is a knockout (cover above, right; panel, left; ©2009 Denis St. John, posted with permission). Denis will have both issues of Monsters & Girls at the table (buy ’em together), featuring Amelia Parts 1 and 2 — a gnarly nightmarish read, highly recommended!
If you’re a fan of twisted horror, black comedy, and the realms of Taboo, David Cronenberg, Charles Burns and Richard Sala, Monsters & Girls is for you, Bunky!
* Did I say “armed for bear”? I meant bears! As in, “The bears are armed –“
Hear ye, hear ye — Colleen Frakes (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007) will be debuting her new jewel Woman King, the mythic tale of the young woman who fought with bears in the legendary war between bears and men — 5″x5″, 88 pages, black-and-white interiors and a full color cover (right, ©2009 Colleen Frakes, posted with permission), all for $7, available at the I Know Joe Kimpel table!
C’mon, go the extra mile — buy a copy for Stephen Colbert, get Woman King on The Colbert Report!
Colleen will also have her Xeric-Award-winner Tragic Relief and her other now-classic works for sale — be sure to pick up Colleen’s comics, they’ll change your life, and for the better.
And for the bears.
* Also at the I Know Joe Kimpel table: The third and latest 4-Square anthology from IKJK, Trivial — showcasing all-new stories and art by Xeric award winning cartoonists Alex Kim (Wall City; CCS, Class of 2008), Alexis Frederick-Frost (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007, creator of Xeric Award winner La Primavera and co-author/artist of Adventures in Cartooning), Sean Ford (CCS Class of 2008, self-publisher of the most excellent Only Skin mini-series, which is also highly recommended — Sean will be there with the latest issue!) and Andrew Arnold (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007, co-author/artist of Adventures in Cartooning). Trivial is an excellent anthology of new work, and be sure to check for back issues of the previous 4-Square anthologies, also on sale at the table!
* Emily Wieja (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007, Tyger Tyger, The End of the World) is debuting her followup to Huck and the Snake, rendered in her distinctive, always bold brush work — Huck & the Indians, Part One (of a two-part story).
Emily’s innovative, strikingly primal approach to story and imagery captures another feral adventure as Huck Finn goes splitsville from civilization. Emily’s imagery evokes the raw emotional landscape, internal and external, of Huck’s breakaway journey. Check it out, and while you’re at it, pick up Emily’s earlier work — including the 4-Square anthology Weather — and make sure to get your copies personalized!
* Caitlin Plovnick (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007, Dead Air #1-2) will be there with her new solo anthology YOU SUCK Magic-azine: a Creepy Loser Comics Collection, a gatherum of Caitlin’s Creepy Loser Comics old and new, as well as a special sneak peek at Dead Air #3!
Caitlin will also have back issues of her 21st Century ‘you are here’ mini-series Dead Air for sale, get ’em while you can, and get ’em all signed by the potent Plovnick pen!
[I might add that Caitlin has also been laboring in the comics mines since graduation — having put in her time with DC Comics (as an intern) and now working amid distribution, she’s sharpened her pens and her wits in the schools of hard knocks, and now knows more than anybody in the CCS circle about how the market really works. She’s earned her stripes, and deserves rank and respect!]
* Also at the table: Mario van Buren, of Girls Don’t Poop infamy, will be debuting his new effort, Prune Hands. I wish I could say more, but Mario would have to rub me out if I did. Really.
* Bob Oxman (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007) will be making the pilgrimage from the hinterlands of New Hampshire, hauling in his hard-won catch Smuttynose 2, part two of Bob’s harrowing illustrated account of the infamous true-life Smuttynose murder case from the turbulent Maine coast (the case that inspired the best-seller The Weight of Water). Be sure to pick up Smuttynose 1 as well, and give ’em a read!
* They’ll also have at the I Know Joe Kimpel table magnificent Tragic Relief t-shirts (by Colleen Frakes), and Mario Van Buren‘s Girls Don’t Poop t-shirts for sale, just $10 each — get ’em signed with permanent Sharpie markers, and you can wear them forever!
More MoCCA previews tomorrow — CCSers, unite!
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Thanks, Steve!
If anyone knows how to get things to Stephen Colbert, I will send him a copy! I’m sure the bears and anti-war theme would make for good fodder.
I’ll be in NYC to cover the talk radio conference – I’ll get to see Rush Limbaugh in person accepting a Freedom of Speech award! *&%#! – and I’m going to try to get down to the MOCCA show if I can manage it! I went last year and REALLY liked it. Hopefully this venue will have air conditioning.
Wally Wood rocks! It’s a shame that he was not appreciated in his time.
“I was summa cum laude in the school of hard knocks”
Thanks for the boost!