art spiegelman
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]
- October 4, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson
Creating Maus: Spiegelman’s sketches revealed
A page of sketches for Maus
Art Spiegelman’s Maus has a straightforwardness to it that makes it look easy, but the book MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic is testimony to the years of preparation that went into the book. MetaMaus includes a lengthy interview with Spiegelman on his sources, his process, and the research he put into Maus, as well as illustration of primary source material and lots of sketches. The book is accompanied by a DVD that includes both volumes of Maus and audio recordings of Spiegelman’s father Vladek, who narrates the story to his son.
Suvudu has posted a 24-page excerpt from the MetaMaus DVD that shows the preliminary sketches and finished pages of two pages of Maus, and it’s well worth a look to see how Spiegelman developed his story on paper. The book complements this nicely with Spiegelman’s descriptions of the work, and it’s well worth checking out when it is released on Oct. 4.
- September 23, 2011 @ 03:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
What Are You Reading? with Kevin Colden
Animal Man #1
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Kevin Colden, whose comic work includes Fishtown, I Rule the Night, Vertigo’s Strange Adventures and Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, among others. He’s also the drummer for the band Heads Up Display.
To see what Kevin and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below …
- September 18, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Comics College | Jack Cole
Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.
This month, we’re looking at the career of one of the Golden Age greats, Jack Cole.
- July 30, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Art Spiegelman is on Facebook; can Twitter be next?
It’s not usually a big deal when a comics creator gets a Facebook page, but Art Spiegelman is not your run-of-the-mill comics creator. He’s the guy who did Maus, the graphic novel that changed the world. So yeah, this is a big deal, especially as he is on Facebook to promote MetaMaus, his new book (due out from Pantheon in October) about the making of Maus. The book will include not only Spiegelman’s ruminations on the genesis of his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel but also a DVD of the entire book, with hyperlinks to sources and annotations. Naturally, Art and the Pantheon folks are promoting it at San Diego Comic-Con this week, with special MetaMaus buttons.
For a bit more on MetaMaus, check out this article in The Art Newspaper, and for a bit more on Spiegelman, stay tuned to his Facebook page.
But will he tell us what he had for breakfast?
- July 21, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
SDCC Wishlist | Skullkickers, panties and more
Skullkickers
The San Diego Comic-Con runs kicks off with a preview night on July 20, then runs July 21-24. If you are a comics creator or publisher, and you’re planning to bring something new to the con — a sketchbook, a print, a graphic novel debut, anything! — then we want to hear from you. Drop me an email and let me know if you’ll have something cool on hand that attendees should know about. Feel free to send any artwork as well.
This time around we have panties from Pantheon (seriously), more Mimoco, word of an announcement by Dark Horse, plans for Viz and Arcana, several Hasbro exclusives and more. So let’s get to it …
Skullkickers creators Jim Zubkavich and Edwin Huang will be at the Image Comics booth #2729, selling hardcovers of the first volume of Skullkickers with an SDCC-exclusive cover. You can find more details here.
- July 11, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Carry a Toon (book) in your pocket
Little Mouse Gets Ready, and he teaches French as well!
Toon Books, the early-reader comics imprint helmed by Francoise Mouly, is relaunching three of its iPhone apps: Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons, by Agnes Rosensteihl; Jack and the Box, by Art Spiegelman, and Little Mouse Gets Ready, by Jeff Smith. Yes, you can get comics by the creators of Maus and Bone for free! All are worth a look on their own merits, and they also make an excellent distraction should you find yourself in the company of bored, fidgety children.
Of course, the free app is just the start—as soon as you open it up, you get the option to purchase an audio version in English or a variety of other languages.
I looked over the Little Mouse app, and it looked good, although the automated page turns are a little disconcerting. (You can turn that off from the start menu but not once you are reading the book.) All three books were originally published in a landscape format so they fit nicely on the screen, and the resolution is good even when blown up to double size for the iPad. And compared to $12.95 for the hardcovers, the free app is a steal.
- May 21, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Asterix family feud heats up; WonderCon’s Hollywood appeal
Asterix
Publishing | In the latest twist in a bitter, and prolonged, family feud, the daughter of Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo is seeking to have her parents declared mentally incapable of running their affairs. Uderzo’s only child, Sylvie, accuses her parents’ advisers of “pillaging” and “destroying an entire family.” Albert Uderzo, 83, fired back by accusing his daughter and her husband of “legal harassment” stemming from his 2007 decision to remove them from senior positions in Editions Albert-Rene, the publishing company he founded in 1979, following the death of Asterix co-creator Rene Goscinny. The family quarrel erupted into the public eye in 2009, when Sylvie Uderzo criticized her father’s decision to sell his stake in the company to Hachette Livre and authorize the publisher to continue Asterix after his death. [The Independent]
- March 30, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Spiegelman talks Grand Prix, Stephenson talks industry
Art Spiegelman
Creators | Michael Cavna talks with cartoonist Art Spiegelman about being only the third American to receive the Grand Prix from the Angoulême International Comics Festival. As recipient of the honor, the 62-year-old artist will help plan next year’s festival. “I don’t know whether you should say ‘congratulations’ or ‘condolences,’ ” he says. [The Washington Post]
Legal | A Michigan judge on Monday ordered the DNA of former retailer Michael George to be compared with a hair found on the body of his wife when she was shot to death in 1990 in their comic book store. George, 50, was found guilty in March 2008 of first-degree murder, but that conviction was set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct and the possibility of new evidence. [The Detroit News]
- February 1, 2011 @ 07:41 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Spiegelman wins Grand Prix, Borders delays more payments
Art Spiegelman
Awards | Art Spiegelman on Sunday won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, marking only the third time an American has received the honor (the other two were Will Eisner and Robert Crumb). “Considering my poor skills, I’m looking a little like the president Obama receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” he told the festival by telephone from the United States. Spiegelman will serve as the grand marshal for next year’s event.
Other winners at the four-day festival, which drew an estimated 200,000 visitors, include David Mazzuchelli for Asterios Polyp (Grand Jury Prize), and Naoki Urasawa and the late Osamu Tezuka for Pluto (Intergenerational Award). The full list of winners can be found here. [Agence France-Presse]
Retailing | The beleaguered Borders Group announced on Sunday that it’s delaying January payments to vendors and landlords in an effort to save cash while it tries to complete a debt restructuring. This marks the second round of delays for the bookseller, which has been pressuring large publishers and distributors to agree by Feb. 1 to convert late payments into $125 million in loans. The bookstore chain announced just last week that it secured a $550 million credit line from G.E. Capital, but only if several tough conditions were met — including an unlikely agreement from publishers. [The Wall Street Journal]
- January 31, 2011 @ 07:20 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Responses to Heavy Ink, Fan Expo Canada adds a day
Warren Ellis
Politics | Warren Ellis joins the list of creators who want nothing to do with Heavy Ink after Travis Corcoran’s inflammatory remarks. At The Daily Cartoonist, Ted Rall pushes back on the outrage, saying, “If I only bought from companies and individuals whose political beliefs I agreed with, I wouldn’t be buying much.” [Warren Ellis, The Daily Cartoonist]
Conventions | Now there’s even more of Fan Expo Canada to love: The self-proclaimed “largest combined gaming, horror, comic, science fiction and anime event in the country” is expanding from three to four days, Aug. 25-28, 2011. [Convention Scene]
Manga | A Chinese artist named Xiao Bai is this year’s winner of the Japanese government’s International Manga Award. The prizewinning entry, Si loin et si proche (So near and so far), was published in Belgium last year. [Monsters and Critics]
- January 12, 2011 @ 09:07 AM by Brigid Alverson
“This doesn’t exist, but I can make it happen”: Françoise Mouly explains it all
To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, every word in Françoise Mouly’s interview with CBR’s Alex Dueben is fascinating, including “and” and “the.” It’s a marvelously insightful look at nearly every aspect of the legendary RAW, New Yorker, and Toon Books editor’s multifaceted career: The status of Toon Books, the challenges of producing educational books for children that are also fun to look at and read, her personal history with comics, the importance and legacy of her and husband Art Spiegelman’s seminal alternative-comics magazine RAW‘s production values, the shift among underground/alternative cartoonists’ careers from character-focused (a la Zippy, Jimbo, and Adele Blanc-sec) to creator-focused, her duties and work style as The New Yorker‘s art editor, working with visual artists from across the comics and illustration spectrum, her dream of an increased presence of actual comics in the magazine, R. Crumb’s apparent New Yorker beef, Toon Books’ upcoming slate…pure gold from one of comics’ most influential figures.
- January 6, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
Interview of the day: Art Spiegelman gets the Graphic NYC treatment
Art Spiegelman (photo by Seth Kushner)
Christopher Irving has a long, juicy interview with Art Spiegelman at the Graphic NYC blog, illuminated by Seth Kushner’s moody photos.
Spiegelman talks about his early comics reading and the freedom of working on comics in the 1970s, when the entire medium was caving in and there was plenty of space to create something new. He intersperses broad reflections on the medium with arresting moments, such as falling asleep in a basement full of old Happy Hooligan comics and dreaming about the iconic character (whom he later morphed in to a self-portrait, Hapless Hooligan).
- November 18, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics at the ALA
Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly meet the peeps
The American Library Association’s annual midsummer meeting just wound up in steamy but hospitable Washington, DC, and it was a great weekend for graphic novels.
The vibe at a library meeting is completely different from a comic con. It’s quieter, friendlier, more a meeting among equals than a fan/superstar kind of thing. And it’s strictly about graphic novels, not periodical comics (which most libraries don’t collect), and not movies or video games. Marvel and DC weren’t there, but a lot of the smaller indy publishers were (Top Shelf, BOOM!), and Diamond Book Distributors also hosted a number of publishers at their booth. The big guys (Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster) all have booths filled with every type of book, including graphic novels, although funnybooks often get short shrift from the reps there (a source of continual irritation to my librarian friends).
So, what did I see?
- June 29, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics college: Art Spiegelman
Maus Vol. 1
Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.
Today we’ll be traipsing through the body of work of one of the most significant (if not exactly prolific) American cartoonists of this modern age, Art Spiegelman.
- June 25, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner