Christina Blanch
Comics A.M. | ‘Philémon’ creator Fred dies at age 82
Philémon
Passings | French cartoonist Theodor Friedrich Otto Aristidès, aka Fred, passed away Tuesday in a Paris hospital at age 82. He was best known for Philémon, his surrealistic comic about a French farm boy who fell down a well into a fantasy world akin to Wonderland. Fred was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville d’Angoulême in 1980, and had been the oldest living recipient. [L'Observateu de Beauvais]
Creators | John Layman, who’s writing the 900th issue of Detective Comics (No. 19 in the New 52 continuity) talks about his plans for that and his creator-owned series Chew, and contrasts the two: “Well, the cases are weirder in Chew. There is an element that’s the same – you introduce a conflict, and then you have a detective with a certain skill set resolving it. … Batman’s just happen to be gadgets and fists. I guess if there’s a formula in the skeletal layer, it’s probably the same.” [Hero Complex]
Mark Waid wants you to go back to college — for free!
Eisner-winning writer Mark Waid has put his muscle behind a new college course — and everyone is invited into the classroom.
The course is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled “Gender Through Comic Books,” and it will feature interviews with Brian Bendis, Scott Snyder, Matt Fraction, Gail Simone, editor Sana Amanat, and a host of other comics creators and insiders.
This isn’t just coming out of the blue: Ball State University adjunct professor and doctoral candidate Christina Blanch has already taught the course in the traditional format, as she explained in an interview at Wired’s GeekMom blog, and last semester Ball State asked her to teach it as a MOOC. The course is offered via the Canvas Network, and it’s free; the only cost is the textbooks, i.e. comics, which, if you’re reading this, you may already own. Blanch is answering questions and responding to comments about the course on Twitter.
Comics A.M. | ‘This is not a colorists thing’; GNs as learning tools
Jordie Bellaire
Creators | Colorist Jordie Bellaire launches a protest against a convention that refuses to include colorists as guests. “Your one sentence, ‘this is not a colorists thing,’ was surely the most pigheaded and dismissive thing I’ve been told since I began professional coloring,” she writes, and then goes on to point out all the things colorists do to make comics great and make a forceful argument for including them (as many major cons already do). In a later post she explains why she won’t name the convention. [Jordie Colors Things]
Graphic novels | A study soon to be released by a University of Oklahoma researcher shows that students who read a textbook in graphic novel form retained more than those who read a straight prose textbook. [The Oklahoman]