Saturday, January 28
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Tracy Butler’s delightful artwork and sharp storytelling jump out in her anthropomorphic Prohibition-era comic Lackadaisy. In her own words, Lackadaisy is “historical fiction, parody, dark comedy, and abject nonsense.”
If a stellar comic isn’t enough to grab you, then her tutorials on drawing, digital toning and step-by-step comic creation should push you over the edge.
1. An early prototype for the Alfred E. Neuman character appeared in the magazine with the name Melvin Cowznofski.
2. Alfred E. Neuman’s name was originally Alfred L. Neuman. The name change happened in issue #30 (Dec. 1956) because art director John Putnam felt the “E” had more panache.
3. The cover for issue #38 (March 1958) was finger-painted by a celebrity chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs.
4. Mad #44 (Jan. 1959) featured the debut of Alfred E. Neuman’s girlfriend, Moxie Cowznofski. She looked like a cross between Alfred and Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days. Not a pretty sight.
5. Mad was the first national magazine to feature President John F. Kennedy on its cover. The issue (#60, Jan. 1961) was printed six weeks before the election, with the reversible front and back covers congratulating Kennedy and Richard Nixon for winning the election. That way vendors could display the magazine with the winner’s respective cover facing front.
6. The great Sergio Aragones has contributed cartoons for every issue of Mad since his debut in 1963, except for one issue. The post office actually lost the artwork Aragones created for the issue.
7. Lawrence of Arabia was the first movie to be spoofed on the cover of Mad (#86, Apr. 1964). The spoof was titled “Alfred of Arabia”)
8. Between the two of them, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have purchased the original art for 11 covers of Mad featuring spoofs of their movies. Spielberg owns the artwork for the cover to issue #1.
9. Though he has appeared on hundreds of covers of Mad over the past fifty-plus years, Alfred E. Neuman has never been pictured in profile. In fact, he has no profile.
The preceding facts can be found in the excellent Mad Cover to Cover collection by Watson-Guptill Publications.
A press release from the Hero Initiative:
HERO INITIATIVE MEMBERSHIPS ARE NOW AVAILABLE
THE HERO INITIATIVE MEMBERSHIP DRIVE
Become a member of the only organization dedicated to assisting comic book creators in need
LOS ANGELES, Calif., January 5, 2009 – The Hero Initiative announced today that annual memberships for the organization are now available for purchase. There are four levels of membership: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Excelsior!
A Bronze membership costs $29 and includes: a personalized membership card (which will arrive approximately 4-5 weeks after you sign up), a quarterly newsletter and a Hero Initiative sketch card from a randomly selected artist. Artists include Mike Bencic, Dan Brereton, Dick Giordano, Bob Hall, Dan Jurgens, Mike Mayhew, George Pérez, Joe Quesada, John Romita Sr., Dave Simons, Jim Valentino, Carly Wagner, Bob Wiacek, Richard Zajac and more!
A Silver membership costs $99 and includes: all of the Bronze perks, plus a Hero Initiative T-shirt (your choice of Dawn or Hero Hand), a copy of the Marvel Then and Now DVD and a copy of The Unusual Suspects graphic novel.
A Gold membership costs $250 and includes: all of the Silver perks, plus invitations to Hero Initiative VIP Members-Only parties at 2009’s Wizard World Los Angeles and Wizard World Chicago.
An Excelsior! membership costs $500 and includes: all of the Gold perks, plus your flat item (maximum size 11” x 17”), signed and personalized by the one and only Stan Lee.
“I’m always amazed and happy to see the support that fans have shown Hero,” said Hero Initiative President Jim McLauchlin. “Hopefully, this will be a new way they can show affinity, and get some nice goodies in the process.”
This is the first time memberships to The Hero Initiative have been offered. It was put into place with the fans foremost in mind and on consultation with GeekInTheCity.com, a website that covers all things geek, from comics to movies to games. As such, GeekInTheCity’s Aaron Duran is member #1, Jen Duran is member #2 and Stan Lee is member #3. Creator Paul Dini (Detective Comics, Madame Mirage) is also a member already, as is Mid-Ohio Con promoter Roger Price.
“The Hero Initiative does more than help people in need,” said Aaron Duran, explaining why he was eager to help start this membership drive. “They give back to those that inspired our hopes and dreams. They help artists and writers in need, artists and writers that inspired all our tomorrows. Please help the Hero Initiative protect theirs.”
To become a member of The Hero Initiative, fans can sign up at www.atomiccomicsstore.com/heroinitiative.html or on-site at The Hero Initiative booth at the following upcoming comic book conventions: Phoenix Cactus Comic-Con, Jan. 23-25; New York Comic Con, Feb. 6-8; WonderCon, Feb. 27 – March 1; Orlando MegaCon, Feb. 27 – March 1; and Wizard World Los Angeles, March 13-15.
More info at their blog: http://heroinitiative.blogspot.com/
Written and directed by Israeli Ari Folman, it’s an animated memoir-esque documentary of sorts about his country’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. A sodier at the time, he himself played a part in the invasion.
A 128-page graphic novel version with the same title will be released by Metropolian Books next month, with Folman credited as writer and David Polonsky, the film’s art director and chief illustrator, as the artist (Click through to the link for plenty of sample pages).
Waltz had previously won six awards from the Israeli Film Academy (the Israeli Oscars), was named best animated film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign-language film. For more info, including the trailer and somce clips, check out the film’s homepage here.
In the wake of the box office and critical disaster that was The Spirit, I got to thinking about bad comic book movies. There are some films—Daredevil and Fantastic Four spring to mind—that are widely perceived as terrible, but first of all I think they get a bad rap. Secondly, even if you want to take for granted that they’re bad, they still don’t hold a candle to some of the more daunting stinkers out there like, say, Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. I wanted to take a look at some of my personal Hall of Shamers and then solicit opinions from you, my dear readers.
Before I get into a list, though, let me preface this with a little disclaimer: there are certain movies (let’s say Elektra) that you can hear about the project and just know it’s going to be wretched. With these films, the expectations are so low that I’m never disappointed in them. In order for me to consider a film truly horrible, I have to have some expectation of quality. Now, that said, there are some movies on my list that no sane human would have expected quality from. That’s just me. Try not to be too distracted and let’s just enjoy the awfulness together. I’m also going to say that, for the purposes of this list, TV pilots are not “movies.” So anything that was intended to be a TV show (like the unaired pilots for The Spirit and Justice League of America, or the pilot for Gen 13) won’t be on my list. There’s plenty of badness even without those.
Switched has picked up on the story that the New York Times reported (and Caleb linked) a week ago: the death spiral of the print newspaper spells trouble for cartoonists.
Last month, I attended a lecture by Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism about the future of journalism. As in the linked essay, he pointed out that people are not turning away from news–that the top newspapers have more readers now than they ever did. Those readers just happen to be online.
One of the things Rosenstiel talked about was the “decoupling” of news and advertising. Why would you buy an ad to sell cars in the New York Times for a ton of money when you can advertise on a website about cars, where more of your audience will be interested in your product?
Targeted advertising is the wave of the future with ads. And news is suddenly driven by targeted searches, Google news finder, and Twitter feeds.
We’re seeing the decoupling of comic strips from news in much the same way. As the articles pointed out, comic strips are moving to the Web, to their own sites, and to different sources of funding.
Though we’d love to see a world where all artists were able to do exactly what they want for the love of it, the practical fact is that we’ve all got to eat. As the media deals with the shift to the Internet, one of the biggest questions is how to survive as an artist–or a journalist–when the Web has everyone expecting content to be free all the time.
We at Blog@ are going to bring you a bunch of stories about webcomics this month, and we hope to be able to help answer some of these questions.
Edward Cartier, whose work was showcased in the ’30s and ’40s in The Shadow, passed away on Christmas after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. He was 94.
Having begun his stint on The Shadow in 1936, Cartier turned down the opportunity to become an assistant to Norman Rockwell to continue with his work. By the end of his career he had drawn over 800 illustrations for the strip.
Cartier’s work was also used in book covers, for top-tier science fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
According to his son, Dean, Cartier also drew hand-made Christmas cards, the last one depicting Santa giving the Shadow a gift in 2005.
[Via Hollywood Reporter. Photo via Associated Press.]
TV Guide and BBC News report that the new Dr. Who has been named. And, as expected, it’s . . . wait, who is this guy? Twenty-six year old Matt Smith becomes the youngest of the 11 Doctors when his episodes begin to air in 2010.
Smith starts filming during the summer. Present Doctor, the very popular David Tennant, will appear in four specials that will run throughout the year before Smith assumes the role on-screen.
As the New Year has come, it’s getting to that that time where all our favorite shows are returning from their winter hibernation.
TVGuide has come up with a list of television returns. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in a day-by-day schedule, well, look no further! Your friendly neighborhood Newsarama staff has provided a choice list of shows right here:
Knight Rider – Wednesday, Jan. 7 @ 8pm/ET
24 – Sunday, Jan. 11 @ Fox 8pm/ET
Smallville – Thursday, Jan. 15 @ CW 8pm/ET
Supernatural – Thursday, Jan. 15 @ CW 9pm
Battlestar Galactica – Friday, Jan. 16 @ Sci Fi 10pm/ET
Fringe – Tuesday, Jan. 20 @ Fox 9pm/ET
Lost – Wednesday, Jan. 21 @ ABC 9pm/ET
Heroes – Monday, Feb. 2 @ NBC 9pm/ET
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – Friday, Feb. 13 @ Fox 8pm/ET
Dollhouse – Friday, Feb. 13 @ Fox 9pm/ET
Reaper – Tuesday, Mar. 17 @ CW 9pm/ET
[Via TVGuide.]
I wonder if I’d have disliked the Twilight books more if I hadn’t been fully prepared by a rather irate segment of the feminist blogosphere for them to be horrifically, offensively sexist.
If I’d just stumbled onto the books and read them, would I be reacting with revulsion instead of “It’s not that bad”?
What’s really starting to get on my nerves, though, is the constant refrain of “I haven’t read the books, but here’s my take on them.” I’m a critic by trade, a rather overeducated one, and so I’ll stand by anyone’s right to read and critique a text. If you read the Twilight books and hated ‘em, great. However, when you haven’t read the text, I think at some point you lose your right to be snotty about it.
Comic fans are quite used to others’ elitism. We get it all the time, the teasing cracks from our friends who aren’t comic folk, the people who look at you funny when you tell them you were at the comic convention or that the best book you read last year was a trade paperback (notice I didn’t use the term graphic novel).
We even get elitist with each other. I’ve been told several times that I’m not a true comic fan because I don’t really read superhero books. Others get told that they’re stupid for insisting that superhero books can be as good as indie graphic novels. We get called out for reading too much Marvel, too much DC, or too much indie.
(as usual, possible spoilers below)
I didn’t even realize half of these guys had died: “Top Ten Character Deaths of 2008”
A question for British readers: Is Spider-Man hyphenated on your side of the Atlantic, or is it spelled “Spiderman” like “Batman?” I assume the former, but this piece on the favorite superheroes of the cast of Demons made me wonder. I mean, you guys add e’s and u’s in places we Yanks don’t, so maybe you also subtract hyphens.
Has someone started writing a book on the “Reals” phenomenon yet?: Someone should pitch a publisher, get a big advance and start traveling the country and interviewing these folks. That’s my career advice to aspiring non-fiction writers with a background in journalism in the reading audience. Anyway, here’s another story about a Real. Willamette Weekly touches base with Zetaman, who they had previously featured in a cover story, for an end-of-the-year update piece.
You’re not sick of best-of lists yet, are you?: If not, you might want to check out Matthew Price’s list for The Oklahoman. He’s the second person I’ve seen refer to Supergirl as “most improved.”
Man impersonating The Odinson frightens varlet: In the burglar’s defense, who wouldn’t run when they saw a dude dressed only in tin foil coming at them?
This weekend’s must-read piece: Tom Spurgeon interviews Abhay Khosla, one of the Internet’s best writer’s about comics. Here he is discussing Secret Invasion, a topic he devoted quite a bit of attention to this past year:
The biggest comic company in the country’s highest profile series of the year was about religious fanatics blowing themselves up because their religion tells them they’re entitled to a specific parcel of occupied property, where the heroes tell the religious people that the heroes’ white-skinned God will lead them to victory, where the happy ending was that the Marvel heroes kill all of the religious people and that a religious woman has her head blown off mid-prayer. What were they even trying to do?? What did I even read, Comics Reporter? How was that the ending? It’s such a weird comic book. And comic fans make it stranger because most of them seem to think a one-panel Obama cameo is the only politically charged material in the book. People don’t think mainstream comics might mean things! People think mainstream comic creators are brainless fanboys just because mainstream comic fans are brainless fanboys. It’s a bizarre culture.
But look: does anyone want to hear the opinion of Marvel comic book fans on the Middle East peace process? Me neither times infinity.
Daniel and Jason of AFI interview Jim Mallon (Gypsy) and Trace Beaulieu (Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forester) of Mystery Science Theater 3000 about their recently released 20th Anniversary Boxed Set from Shout!Factory.
This was a near, life long dream for me (Daniel0, as I have been a HUGE MST3K fan, and have watched and own hundreds of hours of episodes. You can see the goofy grin on my face through the whole thing. And to have the real logo planet and Crow puppet in the same room with me… was almost enough to make my head bust open!
Drum roll please. I didn’t feel like trimming this down to only five, so you’re getting a top elevent titles. It’s purely based on a) what I actually read (meaning the copy of Bottomless Belly Buttom that I checked out from the library Tuesday, but haven’t had time to read and anyway, the column was mostly already written, didn’t make it), and b) the books that I thought the most entertaining, well told and creative based purely on my own, admittedly, personal biases concerning these things.
The top eleven are in alphabetical order. I liked different books for different reasons, and I wasn’t really happy with any of the orders I placed these titles in. So rather than letting the snake eat its tail … oh, let’s just get on with it.
Alan’s War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope, by Emmanuel Guibert. First Second.
Guibert’s biography of expatriate American G.I. Alan Cope is simply stunning. Illustrated in soft, gray water tones, perfectly suited to capturing the haze of memory, the book depicts the spiritual and emotional maturation of a remarkable man. From a brief stint on the battlefields of World War II to life as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in Europe, Cope’s life is eye-opening and challenging. Guibert’s elegant artwork suits the tenor and majesty of the story to a tee.
The Alcoholic, by Jonathon Ames & Dean Haspiel. DC/Vertigo.
Vertigo announced a graphic novel initiative in 2008, and we didn’t see much evidence of it before the calendar turned. However, we did get The Alcoholic, a brutally hilarious comedy of writer Jonathon A.’s descent into chemical abuse following a break-up. Potty humor, ruminations on human tragedy, and outstanding artwork make it a clear winner. I only hope Vertigo has more in the pipeline and that is can live up to this standard.
Berlin vol. 2: City of Smoke, by Jason Lutes. Drawn & Quarterly.
The second installment of Lutes’s trilogy detailing the fall of the Weimar Republic, City of Smoke finds Marthe wrapped up in Berlin’s hedonist nightlife, a group of African-American jazz musicians dealing with duplicitous business partners, and struggling Jewish and Communist workers (and sympathizers) eking out subsistence livings. It’s a remarkably virtuoso performance, funny and tragic, political and artistic, exciting and mundane. Berlin remains one of the great portraits of human social existence, captured in all its nuanced beauty by the elegant lines of a master cartoonist.
The Education of Hopey Glass, by Jaime Hernandez. Fantagraphics.
Jaime’s back with more of the gang in Hoppers, this time focusing on Hopey’s current relationship struggles and her belated attempt to try adulthood. Meanwhile, one-time Maggie beau Ray Dominguez copes with his own maturing process. Beautifully drawn as always, The Education of Hopey Glass finds Jaime at his peak as a writer. The struggles of adapting to no longer being a kid have never hit this hard on a comics page.
Deitch’s Pictorama, by Kim, Seth and Simon Deitch. Fantagraphics.
Though it’s not quite the revolution in graphic storytelling that Deitch seems to hope for, this collection of illustrated prose is just another testament to the powerful imagination of Kim Deitch. Works by his brothers are solid, but it’s Kim’s art and Kim’s writing that propels this collection of short, mind-bending, surreal fiction onto this list. Deitch has been warping reality with his blend of hyper-reality and throwback pop entertainment for a long time now, and he manages to somehow get better every single year. Pictorama’s a winner.
Little Nothings: The Curse of the Umbrella, by Lewis Trondheim. NBM.
Hilarious one-page observations on life by the master cartoonist, Little Nothings is one of the sharpest and funniest books of any year. Taken from Trondheim’s online webjournal, each strip finds Trondheim displaying his hypochondria, celebrating the pleasures of lightsabers, or pranking journalists at Angouleme. Reading this will be one of the most pleasurable and positive afternoons of any reader’s life.
Paul Goes Fishing, by Michel Rabagliati. Drawn & Quarterly.
Although he does fish in this hilarious and tear-jerking book, Paul’s biggest quest in this book is the pursuit of fatherhood. Rabagliati’s ability to render the crushing heartache of a failed pregnancy draws readers right into the pain faced by Paul and wife Lucie, while Rabagliati balances the narrative with a delightful narrative about an extended family vacation. The story transitions comfortably into several sidetracks that illuminate the characters even more.
Rabbi’s Cat 2, by Joann Sfar. Pantheon.
The sequel is worthy of the original. Sfar’s continuing parables of an African rabbi, his talking cat, and their extended family is another eye-opening look at religion, African lore, love, faith and all the things that bind up together. Witness Malka of the Lions’ history told and then untold, building the legend of his fictional character while simultaneously revealing the simplicity of his true self. The longer narrative is a religious pilgrimage, a quest for a mythical Jewish holy land, tucked away in Ethiopia, protected from prying eyes. It’s a tale of love, loss and outrageous behavior by delightful, exciting characters, and through it all, Sfar’s car observes the truths of man.
Three Shadows, by Cyril Pedrosa. First Second.
Pedrosa’s gripping parable about a father’s attempt to save his son’s life is tragic, affecting and beautifully drawn. Reading it is like falling into a Miyazaki film you never knew existed, full of whimsy and magic, dark scary places and brittle human hearts.
Usagi Yojimbo 22: Tomoe’s Story, by Stan Sakai. Dark Horse.
Usagi’s long-time ally Tomoe Ame gets the spotlight here, encountering imaginative supernatural threats based on actual Japanese folklore and a vast conspiracy to undermine Lord Noriyuki, Tomoe’s lord and ruler of the Geishu province. Sakai does great action, embedded in wonderfully researched histories, and the finale of the book, a re-creation of a classic Japanese tea ceremony, is among the best stories Sakai’s produced in twenty-plus years of Usagi comics.
What It Is, by Lynda Barry. Drawn & Quarterly.
Barry’s comic book essay on creativity and activity book to help the creative process flower is probably not among the most fun titles released this year, but there’s no way to argue against what she accomplished. The book is clever, well designed, and full of great ideas and insightful theories in Barry’s own life and how her experiences have shaped her creative impulses. It’s a tremendous accomplishment and a stand-out in any year.
This is now only 90 years away! With diet, exercise, clean living and a few miraculous advances in medical science, we can all live to see the day that these comics actually come to pass!
The scream masters at Fangoria have launched their Digital Publishing Initiative, and they’ve got lots of creepy, cool stuff available for fans with a high speed connection and Adobe Flash. Check out comics like Robert Kurtzman’s Beneath the Valley of Rage and Death Walks the Streets; the full-length novelization of the upcoming movie, Bump; and best of all, digitized and fully restored classic copies of Fangoria!
The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.
Lots of people have been recommending the new DC/Vertigo serial Scalped to me, so I figured I’d check out the first trade paperback collection, Indian Country. Perhaps the hype had me expecting too much, because I see potential in the series, but it’s not quite there. At least not yet. Jason Aaron writes this critically popular series, and R.M. Guera is the illustrator.
Here’s the gist: Dashiell Bad Horse returns to the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation in South Dakota, from which he left/was exiled from at the age of thirteen (which we are told repeatedly, just as we’re reminded he’s been away for fifteen years). He gets a gig as hired muscle for the local crime boss and casino owner Red Crow. His mom’s furious at him, yet secretly loves him still. To complete the core family dynamic, Red Crow’s daughter is the local whore/alcoholic who Bad Horse had a youthful crush on. Oh, and Bad Horse’s secretly an FBI agent, blackmailed into returning to the reservation by a jerky superior.
Guera’s art is wonderful, gritty and stylized, wallowing in its poverty and desperation. The characters have lived their lives, and it shows on every line of their faces. The storytelling’s pretty solid to boot. So the art’s working pretty well, supporting the decadence of the script and conveying information clearly. So far so good.
Unfortunately, the story’s just not clicking for me. Bad Horse is just too much – too much posturing, too much cocksure smartassness, too damn superheroic for a down-on-his-luck loser. At one point, he get ambushed by a half dozen gunmen – he walks through an open door into a barn, everybody is training a gun on that doorway and is sheltered from his direct line of sight – and he still manages to kill or maim every one of them. It’s so over the top, completely ludicrous and out of place with the hype I’d heard about how gritty and realized the series is. Again, perhaps it’s my expectation just being too jarringly off from what Aaron’s delivering here.
Then again, the character arcs aren’t doing much to overcome the over-cooked hard-boiled absurdity of it all. The characters’ language is like Raymond Chandler dialogue on anabolic steroids. You can guess six pages into the story that Bad Horse’s mom has a secret history with his nemesis Red Crow, just as you can count pages until Bad Horse and Red Crow’s daughter get down in violent fashion. It could be cool and shocking, but it’s all just laying there on the page, predictable, obvious.
But, like I said, a lot of people have recommended this series to me.
I’m going to give it more rope, and that’s one of the great things about the library. You can give a series another chance to develop to its potential when it’s not going to cost you anything but time.
Yes, I’m on a bit of a Gaiman kick right now. It always seems to happen around the holidays, or anytime I’m doing a bit of reflecting. These days most of that reflecting is on a time, ten years ago, when I was a teenage goth girl just moving away from my parents for the first time, alone in a big, dangerous, scary city that felt more like home than any place has since (though oddly every time I hop a train into NYC I get that coming-home feeling, like the city itself is welcoming me back with open arms).
The Sandman was one of the pieces of art that held my hand through those days, and I’ll always be grateful to Neil Gaiman for writing it, and to myriad wonderful artists for illustrating it.
Also, his New Year’s wishes are about the best ones I can think of. So while I sit here listening to the Smiths’ “There is a light that never goes out,” with a huge teen vampire novel sitting next to me waiting to be devoured, I share them with you. Because I wish them for you, too. Even those of you who hate me.
…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
Read Neil’s Blog. Which he calls a journal, because he is classier than me.
Well, it’s official. Up now is the first post from JKParkin and his crew (and some friends), introducing Robot 6, their new blog about comics, hosted over at Comic Book Resources.
Robot 6 is a new comics blog by many of the folks from the old Blog@Newsarama. In addition to Kevin and me, you’ll also find Lisa Fortuner, Tom Bondurant, Michael May, Melissa Krause, Stephanie Chan, Tim O’Shea and Chris Mautner here. You’ll also find a couple of people whose names you might recognize from the comics industry – Jennifer de Guzman from SLG Publishing and Larry Young of AiT/Planet Lar fame
Stop by and say hi now, but their official launch isn’t until Monday. If you’ve missed Tom’s Trinity Annotations, there’s a new one of those over there, too.
Best of luck, folks. We’re glad you have a home again!
Okay, so the headline does elicit a “duh” from comic readers, but still, it bears repeating.
If you’ve already made your way through your holiday gift copy of Jess…er, Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics, and are still jonesing for some literate comic book thinking and criticism, check out Michael Chabon’s latest book, Maps and Legends: reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, his first nonfiction book, which collects his essays on a variety of subjects, including a loving look at Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! – “The Killer Hook: Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!” – a version of the introduction he supplied for Dynamic Forces’ recent collection of issues #1-#14 of American Flagg!. It’s good, good stuff, and encapsulates in a way I’ll never be able to, why Flagg! is just so damn good, and should be recognized as the foundation (or at the very least, one of the pillars) that modern comics stand on, and why Chaykin should be a household name both within and without comics.
Also in Maps and Legends: a version of his Eisner 2004 Keynote in which he spoke about kid’s comics (and the way that everyone seems to get them wrong), his “Thoughts on the Death of Will Eisner,” “Fan Fictions: On Sherlock Holmes” and many more on subjects very familiar to comic book and genre fans. Topping it all off, or rather, covering it all up, a gorgeous Jordan Crane cover – or three covers, each showing a part of the scene (and the reason why the book is shrink-wrapped in your local Barnes & Noble).
A few more thoughts about Maps and Legends, which I can’t wait to read slowly:
1) It fits solidly in the category of what Alan Moore talked about with his ABC line of books way back when, of being a beautiful little object. Hold Maps and Legends in your hand, and tell me it just doesn’t feel…right.
2) I know I’m not the only one, but I’m tickled by the notion that someone who might come to this book due to Chabon’s literary prestige may come away from it with a hankering to find some American Flagg!. Normally, I hate the term “ambassador to comics,” but I think it applies here.
3) I still think (and some of this is colored by having met him) that Chabon does the high-wire act really well. Where many can come off with an amazingly condescending attitude towards comics and fans when they talk about them to an outside audience, Chabon comes across as your really smart friend who just digs comics, and isn’t ashamed about it.
4) This has nothing to do with Maps and Legends, but I will never, ever give up my autographed copy of Kavalier and Clay. Ever.
5) And while I’m off topic, I love how Chabon includes comic folk in his other works, like Chaykin and Mike Mignola providing spot illustrations for the McSweeny’s collections he edited, and getting Gary Gianni to do the same for Gentlemen of the Road.
6) Finally – Maps and Legends published by McSweeny’s, so the print run isn’t huge – and given that it’s an essay collection, orders probably weren’t that large either. It’s been out since May, so I’d recommend grabbing it when you see it.
According to numerous sources, author Donald Westlake died on New Year’s Eve in Mexico of an apparent heart attack on his way to dinner. He was 75.
Over the course of his career, Westlake had written more than 90 books, employing a number of pen-names, arguably the most famous of which was “Richard Stark,” under which he wrote the Parker series of novels.
Westlake was working with acclaimed comics creator Darwyn Cooke on graphic novel adaptations of the first four Parker novels for IDW Publishing, The Hunter (aka Point Blank), The Man with the Getaway Face, The Outfit, and The Mourner.
Westlake is survived by his wife, four sons from previous marriages, three stepchildren and four grandchildren.
