Tuesday 31 March 2009

Chris Ware and Marjane Satrapi



A few weeks ago graphic novelists Marjane Satrapi and Chris Ware spoke with the New Yorker Art’s Editor Françoise Mouly at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts as part of a three-day festival of New French Writing. They tackled topics like storytelling and autobiography.
Download the MP3, or listen to it on wnyc.org.

Monday 30 March 2009

Basil Wolverton’s Culture Corner



Check out this page on Dinosaur Gardens for a huge collection of these Wolverton gems which ran in Whiz Comics from 1945 to 1952.
(Via Drawn!)

In Brighton on 16th April...


And look out for the new collection of anti-war themed comic-strips, edited by Sean Duffield and coming soon. Flyer art by Nelson Evergreen.

Saturday 28 March 2009

"Young Cat Already Regreting Puberty" by Ronald Searle



I'm at London's Web & Mini Comics Thing today (selling The Bedsit Journal). Maybe see you there?

Friday 27 March 2009

Could it be...

A good new cartoonist on the UK scene?

A strip by Chris Taylor :


Thursday 26 March 2009

Julie Doucet



Some great art on Julie's website, especially on this page.

Feeding Time

A 1970 (or thereabouts) underground comic strip by Spain Rodriguez. Read the rest of it on Hairy Green Eyeball.



Monday 23 March 2009

The Perry Bible Fellowship



Nicholas Gurewitch interviewed on The Daily Crosshatch.

Read more strips at the Perry Bible Fellowship. Below are some of my favourites...









Friday 20 March 2009

Marvel Theme Songs

Forget about the Watchmen movie, these groovy introduction sequences for the ultra-cheap 60's Marvel cartoons are much more fun. The Fantastic Four opener has some particularly good sound effects.












Thursday 19 March 2009

Coming Soon : Manly Boys!

A new publication by Steve Tillotson and Gareth Brookes.



Wednesday 18 March 2009

Comic Book Legends Revealed

There's a particularly good edition of Brain Cronin's Comic Book Legends Revealed over on Comic Book Resources. Below is just one of the "comic book legends" he examines this week.

COMIC LEGEND: Bluto was changed to Brutus in the 1960s Popeye animated series because Bluto was owned by the company that did the previous Popeye animated series.

STATUS: As it turns out, False

This is technically about an event that occurred during the Silver Age, but it’s about a character from the 1930s, so it still counts, consarnit!!

Popeye, the break-out star from Elzie Crisler Segar’s classic Thimble Theatre comic strip, was developed by Fleischer Studios as a cartoon serial series to debut in 1933. The Studio asked Segar if he could help them by introducing a recurring villain for Popeye to fight.

Segar then introduced “Bluto the Terrible” in 1932. (see the utterly brilliant Popeye Vol. 3: "Let's You and Him Fight!" - R.C.)

Bluto popped up in the Fleischer cartoons and he then became a major sensation as Popeye’s famous arch-rival.

Fast-forward to the late 1950s, and Fleischer Studios (now known as Famous Studios) were finished with the Popeye serials.

King Feature Syndicate decided that they would then make cartoons of Popeye of their own.

When it came to Bluto, however, since Segar had created the character for Fleischer, King Features figured that Paramount (who now owned Famous/Fleischer) had the rights to the character, so they introduced a “new” character named Brutus, who was like Bluto, but fatter and, well, named Brutus (the voice actor, Jackson Beck, was even the same).

However, after the fact they realized that no, since Segar introduced the character first in the comic strip, King Features owned the character themselves! So they introduced a “new” character for no reason!

He’s been back to Bluto ever since! But for a whole generation of kids, there’s that big confusion over what exactly is the difference between Bluto and Brutus!

Monday 16 March 2009

The First Yellow Kid

Nicked from Craig Yoe's blog : the first appearence of the Yellow Kid in his signature yellow nightshirt. Previously, his shirt was pale blue or just plain white. Here's the illustration from January 5, 1896.

Saturday 14 March 2009

Friday 13 March 2009

London Zine Symposium 2009

One for your diaries...



Sunday 3rd May 2009
12pm-6pm
The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ
(www.ragfactory.org.uk)

Thursday 12 March 2009

C. Tyler

“I was suffering through yet another boring planning meeting and thought, ‘What do I care about the placement of trash cans?! I’m the only one in this room who can draw one!’ I realized right then and there that although I’d been getting stuff published on and off for the last 20 years, it was time to get serious about comics”.



Wouldn't it have been great to have an art teacher like Carol Tyler?
See this page for a promotional video of Carol Tyler drawing/teaching/talking comics with her students.

Wednesday 11 March 2009

Boody Rogers



Craig Yoe's new Boody Rogers collection reviewed on Comic Book Resources.
I had to check Art Out Of Time to remind myself how great this guy is, and judging solely by the stories included in that book, this should be an amazing collection.
More info on boingboing.net and thedailycrosshatch.com



More Boody here.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

Vanessa Davis



Vanessa has been doing a regular comics column for Nextbook.org. New strips should be going up on the first Friday of every month, and here are links for the strips she's done so far :
December, January, February, March.

Sunday 8 March 2009

The Art Of Ken Reid

The January 29, 2009 episode of Panel Borders : Alex Fitch talks to writers Alan Moore and Pat Mills about the late cartoonist Ken Reid.








Images from www.comicsuk.co.uk and Peter Gray’s Ken Reid fan page

Saturday 7 March 2009

Art from the Humbug Show


Russ Heath


Al Jaffee


Arnold Roth



Will Elder


Arnold Roth

From the exhibition at the Fantagraphics Bookstore, Seattle.
Read all about it, and see more art, on the Fantagraphics blog - part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.