24-Hour Comics Day
What Are You Reading? with Ethan Young
Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? Today we’re joined by special guest Ethan Young, creator of the webcomic-turned-print collection Tails.
To see what Ethan and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …
Comics A.M. | Comics sales dip in September, graphic novels rise
Thanos Quest #1
Publishing| Comics sales in the direct market were down in September relative to last year, but that may be because the launch of DC’s New 52 pushed sales unusually high in September 2011. Graphic novels were up by 14.4 percent, making for a slight uptick in the overall market. Year-to-date and third-quarter sales were also up by a goodly amount from last year. [ICv2]
Editorial cartooning | The position of editorial cartoonist as a staff job on a newspaper is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, but attendees at the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists meeting in Washington, D.C., don’t seem too downhearted; new opportunities are opening up, and this year’s presidential campaign is presenting them with plenty of material. “Times are tough for the old idea of cartoonists, but all kinds of other things have opened up,” said cartoonist Chip Bok, “And editorial cartoons, all cartoons, are more popular than ever. You see them all over the Internet. The problem now is figuring out how to get paid.” [Voice of America]
Comics A.M. | Berenstain Bears co-creator Jan Berenstain dies
Jan Berenstain
Passings | Jan Berenstain, who with her husband Stan created the popular children’s book characters the Berenstain Bears, passed away Friday at a hospital near her home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Berenstain, 88, had suffered a stroke earlier in the week. Since the release of The Big Honey Hunt in 1962, the Berenstain Bears series has grown to more than 300 books and sold about 260 million copies worldwide, inspiring animated television specials and series, museum exhibits and a stage show. Stan Berenstain passed away in 2005 at age 82. [The Washington Post]
Events | This year’s 24-Hour Comics Day will be held Oct. 20. [ComicsPro]
Comics | Here’s a variation on the comics-aren’t-for-kids-anymore theme, with reasonable parents who know they need to check what their kids are reading, and a retailer who gets it. [WNYT.com]
Now Read This | ‘Darkness’ by Boulet
from Darkness
This one has been making the rounds; I think I saw it first on Kate Beaton’s Tumblr, which I linked to earlier this week.
French cartoonist Boulet, who has worked on Dungeon with Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar, participated in a 24 Hour Comics event during the Angouleme Festival and came away with a delightful story called “Darkness,” which is kind of what it might be like to be roomies with Morpheus or Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance or the brooding elf from Dragon Age 2 or some other dark, mysterious, handsome stranger that can make the girls swoon just by the way he walks into the room. Boulet nails it perfectly and sticks the landing on a fun story.
Some highlights from 24-Hour Comics Day 2011
Lea Hernandez's 24-hour comic
This past Sunday was 24-Hour Comics Day, a grand old comics tradition that began in 1990 when Scott McCloud challenged his friend Steve Bissette to draw an entire 24-page comic in a single day. Scott has posted the whole story, including the first 24-hour comics, on his blog. The idea loped along for a while until 2004, when writer and publisher Nat Gertler came up with the idea of making it a Thing, with coordinated events and people posting on the internet and so forth. And now it even has its own Twitter hashtag. What a long way we have come!
I looked through a lot of blog posts while compiling this, and one thing I noticed was the number of people who felt their comics failed, or who didn’t complete the challenge. I think the value of 24-Hour Comics, especially for newcomers, is that it allows the creator to start something and bring it to a close within a defined period. Starting things is easy, but finishing them is hard, and even finishing a bad comic is better than starting a lot of good ones and never bringing them to a close.
Tom Spurgeon is compiling the definitive, exhaustive collection of links, and what I see from his list and the people linked at the official 24-Hour Comics Day site is that very few well-known creators took the challenge this year; the flip side of that is that there are a lot of ambitious newcomers who gave it a shot.
On the other hand, there were a few veteran creators, including Lea Hernandez, whose comic was super-cute and very colorful, although a bit lacking in storyline …
Comics A.M. | Alibi witnesses testify in Michael George trial
Legal
Legal | Defense testimony began in the Michael George trial Monday after the judge denied a motion by the defense to order an acquittal. George’s daughter Tracie testified that she remembers her father sleeping on the couch in his mother’s house the night in 1990 when his first wife Barbara was shot and killed in their Clinton Township, Michigan, comic store. Another defense witness, Douglas Kenyon, told the jury he saw a “suspicious person” in the store that evening and that Barbara George, who waited on him, seemed nervous. [Detroit Free Press]
Conventions | Last weekend’s Alternative Press Expo inspired Deb Aoki to offer a burst of suggestions on Twitter as to how it could be made better. Heidi MacDonald collected the tweets into a single post, and the commenters add some worthwhile points (including not scheduling it opposite the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, which attracts much of the same audience and is free). [Deb Aoki's Twitter, The Beat]
Awards | Ian Culbard’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness won the British Fantasy Award for best comic/graphic novel, presented Saturday by the British Fantasy Society. [The British Fantasy Society]
Comics A.M. | Robert Crumb explains withdrawal from festival
Robert Crumb
Creators | Robert Crumb pens a letter to The Sydney Morning Herald, explaining why he pulled out of the Graphic 2011 festival: “I was quite alarmed when I read the article in the Sunday Telegraph. I showed it to my wife, Aline, who said, ‘That’s it, you’re not going.’ She got a very bad feeling from the article. She feared I might be attacked physically by some angry, outraged person who simply saw red at the mention of child molesters. She remarked she’d never seen any article about me as nasty as this one.” Sunday Telegraph staff writer Claire Harvey, meanwhile, responds to Crumb’s comments and criticisms lobbed at the newspaper: “Crumb seems to be living in fear of the reaction he once sought to provoke. It seems a sad place for any artist to be.” [The Sydney Morning Herald]
Passings | Kim Thompson eulogizes Argentina cartoonist Francisco Solano López, who passed away on Friday. [The Comics Journal]
Conventions | Reporting from this weekend’s Wizard World Chicago, the Chicago Tribune talks to former comic shop owner Gary Colabuono, who displayed rare ashcan editions of comics from the 1930s and 1940s featuring Superman, Superwoman, Superboy and Supergirl at the show. Blogger Matthew J. Brady has pictures of the ashcans, as well as a report from the show. [Chicago Tribune]
Caanan Grall draws Muppet Thor
For his 24-Hour Comics Day challenge, Caanan Grall came up with a brilliant mashup: Muppet Thor, in which the Muppets discover the mighty hammer Mjolnir and the Thunder God himself makes a surprise appearance with Miss Piggy. Grall does a nice job drawing the Muppets, and the story has some clever twists.
If you can’t get enough of Muppet mash-ups, head over to our sister blog Comics Should Be Good for a few more.
Pirate pugs and David Bowie invade Mike Norton’s 24-Hour Comic
For 24-Hour Comic Day this year, artist Mike Norton visited Challengers Comics + Conversation and created a sequel to the one he did last year. This year’s comic features the return of Baxter, the pug who caught the curse of the pirate and is forced to hobble around on a peg leg. It also features David Bowie, a bunch of goblins and a lot of swear words, so it may not be safe for work.
You can read the entire comic here.
Read Thom Zahler’s 24-Hour Comic, ‘Haunted’
Thom Zahler
This past weekend Love & Capes creator Thom Zahler spent the night at the Great Lakes Mall creating a comic from scratch as a part of 24-Hour Comics Day, complete with a Jack Bauer-ish 24 countdown clock. You can read about his mobile art studio and the entire experience on his blog, and you can download the complete story here.
Adam Prosser’s Kirby-meets-Archie mash-up
The Archon by Adam Prosser
Johanna Draper Carlson points out that Adam Prosser has posted his 24-Hour Comics Day comic on the web. It’s one part Kirby’s New Gods, one part Archie Comics and all parts awesome — heck, it’s likely the coolest thing you’ll see today.
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Long Beach Comic Con
Conventions | The local newspapers were all over the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con, held over the weekend in Long Beach, California. The Long Beach Post reported on the ribbon-cutting by Stan Lee — “Some Stan Lee Day,” he joked. “They’re still delivering mail, and the banks are still open.” — and some of the other convention highlights. The Contra Costa Times also has a wrap-up.
Gelatometti, the Wildstorm Studios blog, has a nice photo set from the convention, including a great shot of Jim Lee and Stan Lee having a laugh. [Long Beach Comic Con]
Conventions | The fourth annual British International Comics Show, held Saturday and Sunday in Birmingham, reportedly drew more than 3,000 creators, publishers, dealers and fans. [Birmingham Mail]
Events | A handful of news outlets have coverage of local 24-Hour Comics Day events: Columbia Missourian, KTUU (Alaska), Minneapolis Comic Books Examiner and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. [24-Hour Comics Day]