Bryant Paul Johnson of Teaching Baby Paranoia is spotlighted along with other McGill graduates making their mark on comics in this recent article the MCGILL NEW ALUMNI QUARTERLY! Check it out (and check out Teaching Baby Paranoia if you haven't before).
All you young’uns (and the fogeys too) — go check out the Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies to see what fun you’ve missed by growing up in the iMAC/WACOM/Illustrator era…
Just head on over to FLEEN for the details — Gary’s been tracking a case of blatant rip-off-ery by someone selling a mousepad with Scott Johnson’s design.
Fair use is one of those areas of law that is largely driven by case law (that is decisions of the courts) although it is codified as an affirmative defense in the 1976 (C) act in the United States. All of this is probably immensely complicated by the world-wide nature of the ‘net — other countries don’t have the same (c) laws (although a whole bunch of countries have signed onto the Berne convention). In any event, if you see a good guide to understanding fair use forward it to me (or twit to @xerexes) — I’m curious as to whether there’s a common sense level document out there that can help with this or not. (Otherwise maybe I’ll think about writing it myself…)
This is a great interview with a giant of comics: Carmine Infantino. Well worth reading!
Maybe — the NYTimes reports that Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is going to sell a basic web-surfing tablet supposedly for around $300. Only 18 mm thick, but I’m not sure what the length and width are (more pictures here). It’ll use a Linux based operating system and a Webkit based browser. The device boots directly into the browser. Continue Reading
A little late but better than never? The third edition of the solid-to-really-good anthology Inbound: Comics From Boston from the Boston Comics Roundtable group is all about the romance, the love, the heartache and pain and that's worth reading about now just as much as when I first read through this book back in the Spring.
I’m a big fan of Jeff Smith and really enjoyed the Bone series, even more so with the color version put out by Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. Now Smith collaborated with artist Charles Vess to produce a prequel to the series titled Rose that chronicles the adventure of Rose and her sister Briar before the saga in the Bone series. Originally published as a mini-series of comic books (you know… pamphlets!) it’s coming out this August as single volume from Scholastic (it looks very much like all of the other Scholastic Bone books).
Sophia Wiedeman's The Deformitory is a small, black and white, graphic novel that adds just a touch of realism to its magical realism style. The comic was also her masters thesis for her MFA in Illustration from The School of Visual Arts. Last year, Wiedeman won a Xeric Foundation grant which she used for publication of The Deformitory. Diamond will feature it in its August Previews issue and it will be available in comic shops this fall.
It is a very interesting work, a thoughtful literary comic that I read several times, each time finding new angles to think about. It's hard not to give away the entire plot in discussing the work, but I am going to try. So a partial "spoiler" warning perhaps…
It's Wednesday and that means it's July. We'll have new art from Isabel Marks up top of the site there for July sometime this evening. Also you all already read webcomics.com, right? Well one more reason to add it to your daily feed – that site just got a website design refresh, plus it now bills Brad Guigar as "editor-in-chief". Good stuff!
AWARDS: There was a lot of hubbub yesterday about the nominees for the Harveys, including this story on how Gemstone publishing provided pre-filled in ballots for its employees in past years. The Harveys, like the WCCAs, rely on counting up nominations for comics to determine the list of nominees for each category. How many people participate is really important to the strength of the award. I don't think the Harvey's released that information – but if anyone knows the number of votes for nominees please forward it on to me. On this note Johanna Draper Carlson offers her tips for fixing the Harveys. UPDATE: Tom Spurgeon pens an essay on why The Harvey awards should pack it in.
Also just in – Reuben Bolling just won just won the 2009 AAN Award for the Best Cartoon in Alternative Newsweeklies for his comic Tom the Dancing Bug.
INTERVIEWS: Newsarama has an interview with another Zuda cartoonist – this time it's Andy Belanger. His comic strip Bottle of Awesome started this week.
JUSTIFY MY HYPE: James Duncan's adaptation of The Decemberists' "The Mariner's Revenge Song" is all kinds of creepy awesome.
The nominees for the 2009 Harvey Awards are out — all comics creators (those who write, draw, ink, letter, color, design, edit or are otherwise involved in a creative capacity in the comics field) are eligible to vote for the award winners from now through August 8th. Ballots for voting are available online here. There are a lot of webcomic angles to the list of nominees this year, including the seven nominations for Jeff Kinney’s Diary of A Wimpy Kid (a comic with a webcomic origin) and 10 noninations for John Gallagher’s Buzzboy which also has it origins in an online version.
In the online category, the nominees include three comics on DC’s Zuda website: BLACK CHERRY BOMBSHELLS, HIGH MOON, NIGHT OWLS, plus PVP, and LEAST I COULD DO. Interestingly enough three webcomics from Zuda also received nominations for Best New Series: HIGH MOON, NIGHT OWLS, and SUPERTRON. (Check out CBR’s recent interview with High Moon artist Steve Ellis)
Least I Could Do artist Lar deSouza also snagged nominations for Best Cartoonist and in the Special Award for Humor in Comics. David Malki! of Wondermark also got a nod in the Special Award for Humor category and another one in the SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION category for his book WONDERMARK, VOL. 1: BEARDS OF OUR FOREFATHERS (which I own a copy of and agree is absolutely deserving of this recognition).
In the BEST BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL OR JOURNALISTIC PRESENTATION category HOW TO MAKE WEBCOMICS, by Brad Guigar, Dave Kellett, Scott Kurtz, and Kris Straub received a nomination. In the Best Anthology category, FLIGHT VOLUME 5, edited by Kazu Kibuishi received a nomination.
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