Megaupload

Legal | The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI on Thursday shut down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload, seized $50 million in assets and charged its founder and six others with running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy that’s cost copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The FBI has begun extradition proceedings in New Zealand to bring company founder Kim Schmitz, aka Kim DotCom, to the United States. He and three other associates are being held without bail until Monday, when they’ll receive a new hearing. Three others remain at large. They face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

News of the shutdown was met with retaliation by the hacker collective Anonymous, which attacked the websites of the Justice Department and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Founded in 2005, Megaupload allowed users to anonymously transfer files like movies and music and, certainly on a much smaller scale, comic books. The Hong Kong-based company, which reportedly employed as many as 155 people, is said to have made $175 million from ads and premium subscriptions. According to the indictment, DotCom, whose assets apparently include a fleet of cars, took in $42 million from the operation in 2010.

Before Megaupload was taken down, the company posted a statement on its website claiming that allegations it facilitated massive breaches of copyright are “vastly overblown”: “The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch.” [USA Today, The New York Times, CNET]

J.M. DeMatteis

Piracy | In response to recent conversations about the Stop Online Piracy Act, comics writer J.M. DeMatteis shares his thoughts on comic book piracy: “The bottom line — my bottom line, anyway — is this: If you’re enthusiastic about a particular creator, buy his or her work and then let others know about it. If you spread the word via file-sharing, it’s not much different than loaning a friend one of your books or CDs. Just as I once became an obsessive fan after taping my friends’ vinyl albums, many of your friends will become fans who’ll spend their hard-earned money on actively supporting that creator’s work.” [Creation Point]

Creators | Lynda Barry will be the spring artist in residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [University of Wisconsin-Madison News]

Creators | Movie producer and former Marvel Studios President Avi Arad chats briefly about his new manga The Innocent: “I’ve been in the world of comics all my life, and specifically into Japanese comics in the early days, before manga attempted to penetrate this market. I wanted to do The Innocent a long time ago. It stayed with me quite a while. Once I got out of Marvel Comics, it was one of the things on my bucket list to do a manga. I had an idea and I followed it, and here we are.” [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Dancer #1

Creators | Nathan Edmondson discusses Dancer, his upcoming Image Comics miniseries with artist Nic Klein about a retired assassin and his ballerina companion on the run from a sniper in Milan. [USA Today]

Creators | Jennifer Anderson spotlights Oil & Water, the new Fantagraphics graphic novel by Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler that examines the impact of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf. [Beaverton Valley Times]

Creators | Collaborators Kurtis J. Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins talking about their upcoming Image/Shadowline series Peter Panzerfaust, which reimagines Peter Pan and the Lost Boys as Nazi resisters during World War II. [USA Today]

Publishing | Dave Ferraro and Patrick Markfort discuss the small publisher Sparkplug in their latest podcast. [Comics-and-More]

Salvatore Vol. 2

It’s time once again for our annual look at six books that were, for whatever reason, unjustly ignored by the public and critical cognoscenti at large. With all the titles that are published lately, it’s no real surprise that some books fall through the cracks, though in certain cases it seems grossly unwarranted.

After the jump are six books that, while they may not have made my “best of 2011″ list, I think got nowhere near the amount of attention they deserved. There are lots more that I could include if I had the time. I’m sure there are books you read this year that you don’t think got enough praise either. Be sure to let me know what they are in the comments section.

1. Salvatore by Nicholas De Crecy (NBM). Although highly acclaimed on the other side of the Atlantic, De Crecy is one of those many, many European cartoonists that remains persona non grata here in the U.S. Only three of De Crecy’s books have been translated for American audiences so far: the Louvre-themed Glacial Period and two volumes of Salvatore, the second of which came out this year with barely a peep from critics or readers. That’s a shame as Salvatore is a charmingly absurd anthropomorphic tale involving a philosophizing dog mechanic who, along with his silent, minuscule, bald servent — sets off for South America in a ridiculous contraption of an automobile in search of his true love. As that description suggests, Salvatore is a rather complicated farce, with lots of side stories and supporting characters, including a near-sighted mama pig who searches in vain for a lost child while the rest of her brood becomes ecological entrepreneurs. De Crecy applies an arch, overly formal writing style here that, combined with his rough, detailed art, gives the story an off-kilter, almost grotesque feel that makes it seem both otherworldly and a sly satire of modern foibles, cultures and attitudes. Certainly there’s nothing quite like it being published right now.

King of Flies Vol. 2

2. Pure Pajamas by Marc Bell (D&Q). I have no evidence backing this up, but I suspect Bell is an artist that confounds a number of people. He adopts a big-foot, potato-nose visual style in the best comic strip tradition, and his world is a friendly, anthropomorphic fantasia where everything, from your breakfast food on down is eager to wish you well. On the other hand, his stories lean towards the distressingly surreal, cute characters can easily come to violent ends and things can go bizarrely awry for the most absurd reasons. Myself, I find that tension between the rubbery cute and off-kilter savagery to be one of Bell’s strengths. Pure Pajamas, which collects various strips and stories Bell has done for various media over the years, is about as good an example of those strengths as you’re likely to find.

3. King of the Flies Vol. 2: The Origin of the World by Mezzo and Pirus (Fantagraphics). I suspect a number of potential readers flipped through King of the Flies (either online or in stores) and dismissed it quickly as an obvious Charles Burns rip-off. That’s somewhat understandable. After all, Mezzo and Pirus do wear their influences on their sleeves. Not just Burns, but other artistic lodestones like Quentin Tarintino, David Lynch and Jim Thompson haunt this three-part saga as much as one recently deceased character does. But this dark, disjointed story about an assortment of misfit suburban characters plagued by bad luck and their own poor choices is a compelling, bitterly funny read nevertheless. Despite its obvious influences King never feels like a pale imitation, especially in the second volume, where the ante is upped considerably, both on an aesthetic and narrative level. Don’t let your initial impressions keep you from checking it out.

4. Everything Vol. 1: Blabber, Blabber, Blabber by Lynda Barry (D&Q). It seems odd that a Lynda Barry book should make this list after the deserved acclaim that greeted her last two books, Picture This and What It Is. Yet aside from a review at the AV Club and a New York Times profile (which admittedly is nothing to sneeze at) I’m not sure anyone talked about this new collection of some very early work other than to acknowledge its existence. It certainly seemed to slip off a lot of people’s radar (including my own) when it came time to make a “best of” list. Yet Blabber offers a fascinating look at Barry’s early development as a cartoonist, as she moves from the delicate, oddball Ernie Pook to the rawer, more emotionally savage material of “Boys and Girls.” There’s a lot here for Barry fans, and fans of good comics in general, to chew on.

The Man Who Grew His Beard

5. The Man Who Grew His Beard by Olivier Schrauwen (Fantagraphics). Color Engineering author Yuichi Yokoyama got all the attention this year, but to my eyes Schrauwen is just as innovative and wholly original a cartoonist as Yokoyama. The main difference between the two is that where Yokoyama is focused on expressing motion, machinery and discovery, Schrauwen prefers to explore differences in perception, especially between reality and that of the imagination. Many of the characters in Schrauwen’s collection of short stories (many of which appeared previously in Mome) are mentally disturbed or disabled in some fashion and attempt to reshape what they see in order to compensate for their liabilities. None of this is explicit however; it’s often up to the reader to determine where truth and subjectivity begin and end (though he does frequently drop hints). Incredibly inventive and at times darkly funny, Beard is the work of a master cartoonist worth more attention.

6. Tank Tankuro by Gajo Sakamoto (PressPop). Japanese comics are generally thought to have begun with the end of World War II, but of course that isn’t the case, as this impressive book, lovingly designed by Chris Ware, proves. The Tank in question is an overly exuberant robot warrior/superhero whose metal ball body not only protects him from gunfire but can help produce airplane wings, a drill or even smaller clones of himself — whatever’s needed to get him out of a particular jam. Though decidedly militaristic and nationalistic (Tank is perhaps a bit too eager for war) Sakamoto’s comics from the 1930s are irrepressibly buoyant and loopy enough to delight even the most ardent pacifist. In a golden age of reprints where tons of lesser works are getting dragged back out for a glossy-page omnibus, here’s a little known gem that really deserves a spot in the limelight.

The creator of The Family Circus passed away Tuesday at the age of 89, after what was by all accounts a wonderful life. Keane started drawing The Family Circus in 1960, and it is still going strong today — his son Jeff took over in recent years — and his 60-year marriage to Thelma Keane, the model for the mother in the cartoon, was a love match. Keane served as the president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1981 to 1983 and emceed its awards banquet for 16 years. Even before he died, his fellow cartoonists unfailingly described him as the nicest of nice guys, and startlingly funny. His niceness, apparently, had a bit of an edge.

Keane took The Family Circus seriously, seeing his mission as providing “good, wholesome, family entertainment,” a sort of cartoon comfort food for readers whose real-life families may not have been quite as warm as his fictional clan. In fact, one of the most touching tributes to his work came from Lynda Barry:

I was a kid growing up in a troubled household. We didn’t have books in the house, but we did have the daily paper, and I remember picking out ”Family Circus” before I could really read. There was something about looking through a circle at a life that looked pretty good to me.

For kids like me, there was a map and a compass that was hidden [in] “Family Circus.” The parents in that comic strip really loved their children. He put that image in my head and it stayed with me.

The Family Circus was such an iconic comic that it became a blank canvas for Internet wags who mercilessly parodied Keane’s work. He had a high tolerance for that; he told Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis that his parodies were fine as long as they were funny, and he actually did a crossover with Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead after Griffith featured Jeffy in his strip. It seems to be Amazon, not Keane, who purged the facetious “reviews” of his books such as this one:

It has been decades since Mr. Keane first turned the comic strip world upside-down with his revolutionary approach to the craft… his sparse, minimalist backgrounds, depicting the empty barren futility of the tangible universe vis a vis the soul and essence of our being… his characters rendered with almost stingy economy, e.g. a single nostril clearly Implies a second one… and not least of course the circular framework, which speaks of infinity in all directions, and breaks the rigid iron boundaries of the suffocating Teutonic rectangles..

One of the earliest web parodies (it started as a zine) was The Dysfunctional Family Circus, which posted Keane’s panels and invited readers to submit their own captions. Initially, Keane was cool with it; he told American Catholic magazine, “Some of their captions were funnier than mine.” When he felt the captions were going too far, though, he called the creator of the parody, Greg Galick. (OK, he had his lawyers write to him first, but most people would have stopped at that.)

And when the conflict was personalized, Galcik wrote, it spelled the end. “[A]s we got further into the conversation, I just realized I couldn’t really go on doing what I’m doing,” Galcik’s announcement notes. Bil Keane had surprised him. “He’s actually a nice guy….”

And Keane agreed to let Galcik run the comic for another week, so he could get to number 500.

The Family Circus may not have been most people’s idea of great art, but when I was a kid it made me laugh out loud. Not only has it become a fixture of everyday life in America, but Keane has contributed several cartoon concepts to the popular vocabulary, including the fictitious imps Ida Know and Not Me (who are the chief wrongdoers in the Family Circus household) and the dotted line that describes Billy’s detour-filled path around his suburban neighborhood. Best of all, Keane always seemed to enjoy what he was doing, and in his personal life as well as his professional role, he made a lot of people laugh. You can’t ask for a better legacy than that.

Link roundup:

King Features, Keane’s syndicate (the page received so many views yesterday that the site crashed)
IDW Publishing’s statement
Comic Riffs gathers tributes from fellow cartoonists
Stephan Pastis’s personal memories of Keane
Bil Keane obituary at NPR
Bil Keane obituary at The Washington Post

Borders

Retailing | A bankruptcy judge is expected to hear arguments today from the bankrupt Borders Group, which is seeking to pay $8.3 million in bonuses in a bid to retain key corporate personnel. The struggling bookseller says that 47 executives and director-level employees have quit since the company declared bankruptcy on Feb. 16 — two dozen just this month — leaving only 15 people in senior management positions. In a court filing last week, U.S. bankruptcy trustee Tracy Hope Davis objected to the bonus proposal, characterizing it as “a disguised retention plan for insiders, which also provides for discriminatory bonuses for non-insiders.” [The Detroit News]

Publishing | Todd Allen looks at sales estimates for the first issues in Marvel’s “Point One” initiative, which featured self-contained stories designed to serve as a jumping-on point for new or lapsed readers: “With the sole exception of Hulk, retailers ordered less copies of the ‘jump on’ issue, than the regular series.  If you figure people picking up the title would also pick up the ‘.1′ introductory issue, this is a flaming disaster and there aren’t going to be a lot of these comics finding their way into the hands of new readers.  It smack of very low buy-in from the retail community.” [Indignant Online]

Conventions | Heidi MacDonald wraps up last weekend’s MoCCA Festival. [Publishers Weekly]

Comic-Con | The deadline for contributions to the 2011 Comic-Con Souvenir Book is April 29. [Comic-Con]

Retailing | Michael Waddell spotlights Memphis, Tenn.-area retailers Comics and Collectibles and Comic Cellar Cards, Comics & Games. [Memphis Daily News]

Daniel Clowes

Creators | Robot 6 contributor Sean T. Collins talks at length with Daniel Clowes about his new book Mister Wonderful. [The Comics Journal]

Creators | This Q&A with Lynda Barry covers a fascinating range of topics, from nervousness and figure skating to brain function and how art works. [The Boston Phoenix]

Creators | Mike Carey discusses his Vertigo series The Unwritten. [The Associated Press]

Creators | Jeffrey Brown chats about The Incredible Change-Bots, and the possibility of more installments: “I think there will be a third and possibly final book, although I don’t want to rule anything out. I still haven’t done any kind of parody or tribute to my other favorite toy growing up which is G.I. Joe. I had a bunch of ideas for a G.I. Joe parody and as I was finishing the second book and then doing some of the drawings and things for the compilation of odds and ends. I realized that I could very easily fold the G.I. Joe parody into the third Change Bots book. So it won’t be too specifically G.I. Joe, but there will be a third book where the Change Bots are now living on Earth and fighting with each other and humans as well. I haven’t quite figured out all the details yet. It would be down the road a couple of years before I get to that.” [Topless Robot]

Creators | Jesse Schedeen looks at the essential comics of Stuart Immonen. [IGN.com]

Creators | Eva Volin interviews Alexis Fajardo at WonderCon. [Good Comics for Kids]

Comics | Ben Morse compares and contrasts Marvel’s Thunderbolts and DC’s Suicide Squad. [The Cool Kids Table]

Comic Relief

Retailing | Berkeley, Calif., institution Comic Relief, opened in 1987 by the late Rory Root, “faces imminent closure” as it reportedly hemorrhages customers and grapples with cash-flow problems that led to the temporary loss of its account with Diamond Comic Distributors. According to an article in the East Bay Express, the store could be purchased by one of Root’s relatives, who would revive the name and retain the staff. Or it could be closed and reopen in another location in January.

However, Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson argues that rescue by Root’s family is unlikely, as they already own Comic Relief: “A seemingly never-ending series of colossal blunders by Rory’s family have put the store on life support, and now the store is a shell of what it once was. Comic Relief hasn’t received new product in weeks. For anyone even the least bit familiar with the business of selling comics, it should be vodka clear: No new books means no business. No business means no store. And far from being some sort of solution to the store’s troubles, the Roots are actually the cause. They took the store over against Rory’s wishes and have run it into the ground with such force, you’d think they were blasting for oil.” [East Bay Express]

Legal | A Japanese publishing group has vowed to fight Tokyo’s newly passed ordinance further restricting the sale of manga and anime containing “extreme” depictions of sexual acts. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Panelfly's app on iPhone and iPad

Digital comics | Xaviar Xerexes plays host to a 2010 digital comics roundtable with Brigid Alverson, Lary Cruz, Lauren Davis, Brian Heater, Heidi MacDonald, Rick Marshall and Gary Tyrrell. “What’s important for digital is, I think, for comics publishers to actually glimpse the future, something not a lot of them are able to do,” MacDonald says. “I don’t mean that entirely as a slam — comics is traditionally a chronically underfunded industry, and it sometimes takes money to ride into the future. Unfortunately, in the Bronze/Chromium/Platinum ages of comics, few publishers have really thought about getting the next generation of readers. Digital comics are going to be the primary exposure for future generations of comics readers — that is until we run out of energy and go back to an agrarian pantheistic society living with torches. One thing publishers need to do is just stop hemming and hawing and go for it, making their catalogs available and so on. The marketplace is going to change – and people are going to HAVE TO CHANGE WITH IT. That’s something I face in my business every day. The idea of a secure business model is gone.” [ComixTalk]

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Broadway | Director Julie Taymor says she’s “happy” that the opening of the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has been delayed again until sometime in February: “The creator of The Lion King on Broadway and the Oscar-nominated movie Frida says that with the holidays and cast absences, there were only ’17 hours left to work until January 11th. It wasn’t enough time’.” [Showbiz411]

Conventions | Last weekend’s Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention drew nearly 30,000 people. [The Star]

Creators | Mark Millar landed the top spot on The List’s “Hot 100,” a rundown of “Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010.” Grant Morrison was No. 33. [The List]

Lynda Barry

Creators | Lynda Barry talks at length about What Is This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book, the end of her comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek and much more. [The A.V. Club]

Creators | While at last weekend’s Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention, David Lloyd chats briefly about V for Vendetta. [The Star]

Comics | Tucker Stone looks back at “the year in stank”: “You know the titles. Cry For Justice. Rise of Arsenal. Batman Odyssey. That X-Men comic where Nightcrawler got his chest split open in full computer tracing glory. The comics that you weren’t supposed to read, that by purchasing you were pretty much saying ‘as many more of these as you perverts can come up with.’ Comics about the most degrading ridiculousness you can imagine (my kid is dead! I can’t get an erection!) laced in the sort of earnestness you usually have to buy DMZ to get ahold of, drawn by people whose eyes must have been locked to the clock when they weren’t vomiting in wastebaskets. This was the year where the worm turned, and those of us who bought crap by design — because it made us laugh — sobered up and realized that we’d actually become a target demographic. [comiXology]

Crime

Crime | Police arrested and released two suspects in the murder of Kenneth McClure, the St. Louis retailer found shot to death on Tuesday. Prosecutors have asked for more evidence before deciding whether to file charges against the 25-year-old woman, who had reportedly worked at Legends Comics & Sports Cards and had been in a relationship with McClure, and a 32-year-old man, who is related to the mother of the 13-year-old girl who accused McClure of rape. [St. Louis Today]

Publishing | DC Comics announced three promotions in its manufacturing and operations departments: Alison Gill to senior vice president-manufacturing & operations; Nick Napolitano to vice president-manufacturing administration; and Jeff Boison to vice president-publishing operations. DC Publicity Manager Alex Segura also announced this morning that today is his last day at the company. [The Source, The Source]

Adrian Tomine

Conventions | Bruce Bennett previews the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival — it’ll be held Saturday at Brooklyn’s Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church — by interviewing retailer/organizer Gabriel Fowler and cartoonists/guests Lynda Barry, Charles Burns and Adrian Tomine. “When I first walked into the show last year, I had this weird wave of nostalgia, like these church-basement comic conventions my parents would take me to when I was a kid,” Tomine says. “I’d be going anyway, whether as a professional or as a fan.” [The Wall Street Journal]

Creators | Nicole Rudnick talks to Lynda Barry about Picture This, teaching, her handwriting and much more. [The Paris Review]

Charles Burns

Creators | Charles Burns discusses his new graphic novel X’ed Out: “I actually had about two or three false starts. I think what generally happens when you start on a new project is that you kind of fall back on what you know. And that’s what I was doing. [When] I was really starting the story out it felt a lot more like Black Hole in just the way it was structured or even looked. It was very different. And I could tell, as I was working on it, that I was not happy with the direction it was going. And what really did push me off the springboard was finding the Tintin story in there; having that other element to play off of; having these two very distinct storylines.” [Afterword]

Creators | Matt Price briefly profiles Mike Grell, who will appear this weekend at Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con. [The Oklahoman]

Creators | Lienil Francis Yu is interviewed ahead of his appearance at next weekend’s Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention. [The Star]

Comics | “There are more stories to be told, so stop telling these tired old tales.” [4thletter!]

Drawn and Quarterly announced on Thanksgiving that it will publish the complete works of Lynda Barry, with the first volume, devoted mostly to Ernie Pook’s Comeek, coming out next fall. And there’s more:

Things to look forward to are her college strip, “Spinal Comics” (edited by none other than long time pal Matt Groening for the Evergreen State newspaper) and the precursor to Ernie Pook, “Two Sisters”. Eventually there will be many other rare or rarely seen tidbits like Lynda’s Esquire strips. We’re not completely sure how many volumes there will be but we figure somewhere around ten.

Lynda! Barry! Everything! Finally!

‘Bout time. I like that D+Q’s Tom Devlin wasn’t going to announce this but was goaded by Tom Spurgeon. Perhaps we should make it a point to annoy Devlin more often, if this sort of thing is the result.

Check out the full schedule in the BCGF press release after the jump.

BROOKLYN COMICS AND GRAPHICS FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES PROGRAMMING SCHEDULE

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival announces a full slate of programming events featuring comics luminaries including Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, Anders Nilsen, Brian Chippendale, Mark Alan Stamaty, Renée French, and many more as part of the one day Festival taking place on Saturday, December 4, 2010 at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (full schedule below). The Festival is especially pleased to announce New Yorker Art Editor, RAW co-editor, and TOON Books Editorial Director Françoise Mouly as a special guest, who will join Kramers Ergot Editor Sammy Harkham for a conversation about the art of editing. Festival programming is curated and principally moderated by Programming Director Bill Kartalopoulos.

In addition to the day’s programming, the Festival is pleased to announce a suite of satellite events taking place over five days, including a very special program of rare comics-related film curated by Mark Newgarden screening on Sunday, December 5 at the Knitting Factory and exhibit openings at Secret Project Robot on Friday, December 3 and the Adam Baumgold Gallery on Tuesday, December 7.

Admission to the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and all associated events is free and open to the public.

BROOKLYN COMICS AND GRAPHICS FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING EVENTS

Downstairs at Our Lady of Mount Carmel | 275 North 8th Street, Brooklyn

All panels moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos unless otherwise indicated

1:00 | LYNDA BARRY AND CHARLES BURNS IN CONVERSATION

Lynda Barry drew the syndicated weekly comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek for more than two decades, and has authored books including Cruddy, One Hundred Demons, What It Is, and this year’s Picture This. Charles Burns is the author of acclaimed graphic novel Black Hole and the recent full color book X’ed Out. Join us for this conversation between two extraordinary artists who also share a personal history as former classmates.

2:00 | THE ART OF EDITING

In 1980, Françoise Mouly co-founded, with Art Spiegelman, the ground-breaking comics anthology RAW. She is also the Art Editor of The New Yorker and the Editorial Director of the TOON Books line of children’s comics. Sammy Harkham is the editor of the Kramers Ergot series, which has articulated a new aesthetic for comics – and comics anthologies – with each monumental volume. Harkham and Mouly will discuss the pleasures and problems of editing.

3:00 | TAKING INVENTORY: THE STORY OF THINGS

In their most conventionally narrative form, comics develop a storyboard-like continuity from panel to panel. But how isolated can a panel be? Renée French, James McShane, Jungyeon Roh and Leanne Shapton will discuss the ways in which they construct or suggest narratives by assembling images of objects and moments that retain their individual integrity.

4:00 | IRWIN HASEN: WHEN COMIC BOOKS WERE NEW

Comic books came into their own with the success of Superman’s 1938 debut. By 1940, Irwin Hasen was working in this new field, drawing early comics featuring Green Lantern and Wildcat before co-creating the comic strip Dondi and, recently, the 2009 graphic novel Loverboy. Evan Dorkin and Paul Pope will join moderator Dan Nadel for a special conversation with an artist who has been working in comics for seventy years.

5:00 | ANDERS NILSEN Q+A

Anders Nilsen’s fine line, radical graphic experimentation, and humane philosophical investigations distinguish him as one of the most notable cartoonists of his generation. This winter sees the conclusion of his series Big Questions, an epic epistemological adventure featuring several cartoon birds (some of them dead) and one disoriented fighter pilot. Anders will discuss his art and career in this spotlight conversation.

6:00 | HOW NANCY IS: THE SEMIOTICS OF THE GAG

Ernie Bushmiller’s iconic comic strip Nancy has been described as “a mini-algebra equation masquerading as a comic strip” drawn by “a moron on an acid trip.” Bill Griffith (Zippy the Pinhead), Mark Newgarden (How To Read Nancy), and Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix) will discuss the unshakeable appeal of Nancy and the essence of gag humor in their comics.

7:00 | CHAOS AND PATTERN

Artwork that is dense with compositional detail, line, pattern and texture encourages a lingering, wandering eye. How does this kind of drawing work in comics? Brian Chippendale, Jordan Crane, Keith Jones and Mark Alan Stamaty will consider the relationship between densely made drawing and the propulsive concerns of visual narrative.

SATELLITE EVENTS AND EXHIBITS

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3

“Nazi Knife” Exhibit Opening

Location: Secret Project Robot | 210 Kent Ave, Brooklyn

Time: 8:00 – 10:00 pm

A collection of images curated by the French collective Nazi Knife, whose eponymous anthology has become a post-millennial clearing house for the psyche-grotesque and other non-narrative drawing in the transgressive post-punk French tradition. Artists include: C.F., Mat Brinkman, Hendrik Hegray, Jonas Delaborde, Andy Bolus, Leon Sadler, Massimiliano Bomba, Stephane Prigent.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival presents:

Cartoonists and Comics On Camera, 1916-1962

Location: The Knitting Factory | 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn

Time: 3:00 – 5:00 pm

A once-in-a-lifetime presentation of rare footage featuring 20th century comics greats and some unusual animated adaptations of their work, curated by Mark Newgarden. See Rube Goldberg, Otto Soglow, Chester Gould, Frank King, Harold Grey, Hal Foster (and many more) at the drawing board! See Jefferson “Gags And Gals” Machamer act! See a drawing lesson from Fred C. Cooper! Plus Krazy Kat, Al Capp, Jacky’s Diary and many more surprises! And join us afterwards for drinks at the Knitting Factory’s front-room bar.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7

“Renée French: Drawings” Exhibit Opening

Location: Adam Baumgold Gallery | 60 East 66th Street, NY, NY

Time: 7:00 pm

Adam Baumgold Gallery presents a selection of Renée French’s exquisite graphite-on-paper drawings from 2007 to the present. Included here are sequences from her acclaimed new graphic novel, H Day, as well as a series of metaphorical “portraits” — uncanny visages made up of microscopic details.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is an ongoing project by Desert Island, PictureBox and Bill Kartalopoulos. More information about the Festival is available online at www.comicsandgraphicsfest.com.

In her latest graphic memoir, Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book, she writes,”The worst thing I can do when I’m stuck is to start thinking and stop moving my hands.”

And if you also have doodler’s block too, or think you can’t draw?

“All I tell them is try drawing a cigarette on anybody in a magazine,” Barry tells NPR’s Neal Conan. “They always start laughing, and I can tell they always feel better.”

You can listen to the entire interview at the link.

(Via Graphic Novel Reporter.)

Legal

Legal | A former middle-school teacher in Idaho has pleaded guilty to possession of obscene visual depictions of the sexual abuse of children for downloading 70 cartoon images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Many of the images depicted characters from The Simpsons. Boise resident Steve Kutzner, 33, faces up to 10 years in federal prison, supervised release of up to three years, a maximum fine of $250,000 and … a special assessment of $100. Sentencing is set for Jan. 5. [Idaho Statesman, press release]

New York Comic Con | Tom Spurgeon settles in for a lengthy, bulleted look at the news and announcements from last weekend’s big convention. Gareth-Michael Skarka, meanwhile, offers commentary on the digital-comics arena. [The Comics Reporter, The Designer Monologues]

New York Comic Con | Ruth La Ferla uses the convention as a chance to look at the intersection of comic books and fashion, spotlighting both cosplayers and noted designers. [The New York Times]

Midtown Comics

Retailing | Chuck O’Donnell profiles Gerry Gladston, co-owner of Midtown Comics in New York City, and notes a third location will open on Nov. 3 near Wall Street. [NorthJersey.com]

Retailing | Elizabeth City, North Carolina, comics store Earth 383 will celebrate its eighth anniversary on Saturday with game tournaments, a sale and a cookout. [The Daily Advance]

Events | Two looks at “LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel,” an exhibit running through Jan. 30 at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. [The Morning Call, CentralJersey.com]

Lynda Barry

Creators | Lynda Barry is interviewed ahead of her appearance this weekend at the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival. [Straight.com]

Creators | Eva Volin posts a video interview with Terry Moore from New York Comic Con. [Good Comics for Kids]

Creators | Hideous Energy posts a podcast interview with Alex Robinson. [Hideous Energy]

Creators | Bestselling author Diana Gabaldon discusses her wildly popular Outlander series, and the spinoff graphic novel The Exile. [Charleston Daily Mail]

Comics | The copy of Superman #703 in the photo accompanying this brief article about the Man of Steel’s visit to Cincinnati bears a $7.99 price tag. The issue, which was released just yesterday, has a $2.99 cover price. Crazy. [Kentucky Post]

Groening and Barry recite a rather amusing Life in Hell cartoon in this clip (via Mike Lynch).

Sample Nancy strip

• Eric Reynolds has posted the official press release regarding Fantagraphics plans to publish Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy:

According to Co-Publisher Gary Groth, who inked the deal, Fantagraphics has contracted to publish the first 24 years of Nancy dailies, beginning in 1938 (when Nancy took over the strip from its former star, Fritzi Ritz) through 1961. “If the demand is there,” Groth noted, “we will of course want to continue into the 1960s and beyond, if for no other reason than to run all those great ‘hippie’ Nancy episodes. But we’ll cross that bridge in 2016 when we finish publishing the books we’ve contracted for.”

Kim Thompson will be editing the series. Each volume will contain four years worth of dallies and be designed by Jacob Covey. The books will be 8″ x 8″ in flexibound format and retail for $29.99. Daniel Clowes will pen the introduction to the first volume. There’s lots more info to discover in the link, including the news that Fanta will print an expanded version of Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik’s seminal 1988 essay, “How to Read Nancy” next spring.

• Sticking with Fantagraphics news for a moment, Mike Baehr lets it be known that Dash Shaw and Tom Kaczynski are collaborating on a story for Vol. 17 of Mome.

Drawing Down the Moon

• Tom Spurgeon reveals that Drawn & Quarterly has signed a two-book deal with Lynda Barry. One of those books, Birdis, isn’t comics at all, but a novel, making it the company’s first prose book the company has ever published. The other Barry book is The Nearsighted Monkey Book: Picture This, which will be out in fall 2010 and is an expanded version of what was originally designed to be a small entry in the company’s Petit Livres line. Birdis will be out in 2011.

D&Q has the official press release up on their blog, as well as the news that they will be releasing the Complete Ernie Pook in 2011.

• Upcoming books I was unaware of dept.: Dark Horse will be publishing a big, 200-page hardcover collection of art by Charles Vess entitled Drawing the Moon. The book will be out in December and Vess has a rundown of what will be in it plus some sample images over at his Web site.

• Another book I was unaware of was Hope Larson’s latest, Mercury. But damn if that cover doesn’t want make me want to buy it, no questions asked.

• Anxiously awaiting that IDW Bloom County collection? It will be out in October.

Swallow Me Whole

Nate Powell‘s Swallow Me Whole is a graphic novel that demands and warrants repeated readings. Released by Top Shelf last year, the publisher describes it as “a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one’s unraveling.” My thanks to Powell for this email interview and his level of candor.

Tim O’Shea: What motivated you to start self-publishing mini-comics at the age of 14?

Nate Powell: Well, I’d been drawing comics with a few friends for a couple of years already. We had many issues of a comic series mapped out, and a friend’s uncle suggested that we finish up each issue and self-publish it. We didn’t really know what that entailed, but soon discovered a few neglected copy machines around town and in my dad’s office. We made 100 copies of the first comic, and they all sold in about two months; we’d never anticipated recovering our expenses, or anyone actually BUYING the books, to be honest. We just wanted to have a comic too, and found the most accessible way to make them. At this time I was already into the punk subculture and had been exposed to people who made zines and released records in much the same manner, but it was not until a few years later when I started writing zines and putting out records that I saw the inherent connections between these two realms of DIY entrepreneurship.

O’Shea: How many different languages has Swallow Me Whole been translated into–and how much are you involved in reviewing or approving the foreign editions?

Powell: So far, there are English and Spanish editions available, and there are French, Dutch, and Italian editions on the way in the coming months. Unfortunately, I can only read French (and I’m no master at that), but I do have total trust in Top Shelf to work with strong translators. It’s exciting to see my lettering transposed to different tongues!

O’Shea: How hard was it to tackle an issue like mental illness without allowing it to overwhelm the story?

Powell: Hopefully mental disorders didn’t overwhelm the story because it’s not a story “about” mental disorders—I see the book as being just as centered around aging, dignity, adolescence, death, and personal sovereignty. Having said that, a good degree of caution was certainly exercised to allow the characters’ subjective experiences carry weight and relevance without exploiting the nature of mental disorders for the sake of narrative.

O’Shea: How much, if at all, did your years of experience working with the developmentally disabled influence or inform your approach toward tackling Swallow Me Whole?

Powell: It’s tricky—on one hand, I don’t really see my line of work as directly influencing the book at all, but that’s because I take for granted that I’ve been close to disabilities all my life. My older brother Peyton has autism and some other minor learning disabilities, and I must’ve been twenty or so before I realized just how different my experience of growing up was from most of my friends. My entire perspective on affection, family communication, physical contact, rites of passage, playtime, change, and transition are filtered through this context. I credit my time spent working with folks with disabilities as drawing those experiences to my attention, but I’d give more of the credit to my family life in childhood.

O’Shea: Are there any particular artists that have influenced your sense of layout (use of negative space/lettering style)?

Powell: Chester Brown’s I Never Liked You opened me up to the possibilities of playing with margins, panel density, and space to control pacing and gravity—the early printings of that book had entirely black gutter/margin space which I’d never really seen before, besides in Mike Mignola books. Will Eisner, Lynda Barry, Dylan Horrocks, John Porcellino were all very impactful as well, especially on the lettering tip. As far as layout is concerned, I greatly enjoy making more traditionally structured comics; I feel that more conservative formal boundaries allows for greater experimentation within those boundaries. So I’d also credit Art Adams, Paul Smith, John Romita Jr., Dave Sim, Eric Talbot, and Bill Sienkiewicz for massive influence earlier in life.

O’Shea: How did you find out you were nominated for the LA Times Book Prize?

Powell: The folks at Top Shelf sent me an excited email one day.

O’Shea: How hard is it working on two graphic novels at once, The Silence Of Our Friends and Any Empire?

Powell: It’s not that hard, it just takes pacing, piecemealing, and a little discipline (of which I’m lacking). I tend to be more productive when I have more than one thing going on at once; I just quit my day job, but find that I get less done at the drawing table despite having more time to do it. If I’m able to bounce back and forth between projects, I get less burnout and can actually move through both projects more quickly.

O’Shea: Have you found an increased in interest in your past works, like Please Release–as the accolades for your latest work piled up? Do you think attention for Swallow Me Whole has helped benefit your webcomics at Top Shelf?

Powell: No real increased interest in older books that I’ve noticed, and I’m not actually sure whether or not anyone reads my webcomics anyway. I’m a lover of tangible paper comics and find it hard to look at webcomics, to be honest—there’s something missing without the weight and smell of the paper product. I do have a self-published minicomic version of those web-available stories, and it has sold surprisingly well, so yes is a solid answer.

O’Shea: Given your love of music (as evidenced by your years running Harlan Records) and more recently, your new band Universe–do you ever work out storytelling challenges in your musical pursuits and vice versa?

Powell: Yes, but usually narratives are lent to whatever medium works better. I was in a band from ’92 to 2007 called Soophie Nun Squad that had lots of narrative focus in its songs—we did skits, rock operettes, lots of hip hop narrative, and reflexive song referencing. Soophie was also comprised of many visual and performance artists, so we all leaned on the side of wanting to tell stories. After Soophie, I was a one-person narrative hardcore band called Wait. Wait was an attempt to bridge these two creative sides; I’d yell and play bass with a slide show or flash-card sequence, or a little busted puppetry. A more recent project called Divorce Chord had narrative focus as well, but my new band Universe is intentionally un-narrative, with the exception of one song thus far. Universe covers ground I miss by NOT doing zines and shorter comics so much anymore—the songs are more emotionally raw and immediate, less filtered, and more reactionary at times.

O’Shea: What were the highlights of the LA Times Book Festival for you? What were the dynamics like at the “Problem Child” panel with Laurie Halse Anderson, Suzanne Phillips, and Jacqueline Woodson?

Powell: The panel was absolutely great, and all three other panelists had insightful and relevant things to say. My personal highlight was walking through a doorway only to come face-to-face with Bob Barker. I also ate dozens of genetically modified teeny tiny hobbit squashes.

Unlovable Vol. 1

Esther Pearl Watson‘s Unlovable Vol. 1 features an artistic style that reminds me of Lynda Barry. Clearly I’m not the first to see the similarity (and in fact Barry offers words of praise for the book). As described by Fantagraphics: “Loosely based on a teenager’s diary from the 1980s found in a gas-station bathroom, Unlovable details the sometimes ordinary, sometimes humiliating, often poignant and frequently hilarious exploits of underdog Tammy Pierce … In the epic saga that is Unlovable, Tammy finds herself dealing with: tampons, teasing, crushes, The Smiths, tube socks, facial hair, lice, celibacy, fantasy dream proms, gym showers, skid marks, a secret admirer, prank calls, backstabbers, winter ball, barfing, narcs, breakdancing, hot wheels, glamour shots, roller coasters, Halloween costumes, boogers, boys, boy crazy feelings, biker babes, and even some butt cracks. Tammy’s life isn’t pretty, but it is endlessly charming and hilarious.

Originally (and still) serialized in Bust magazine, Unlovable includes over 100 new pages created just for this edition, which is handsomely packaged in a unique hot pink hardcover format with sparkly blue glitter that would make Tammy proud.”

One great thing I learned in this interview is that this is only the first volume of Unlovable. Next year on Valentine’s Day will mark the release of the second volume. Volume 1 covers from fall of 1988 to 1989 and Volume 2 is set in 1989. Be sure to visit the book’s page on Fantagraphics, for another of its great Flickr videos, allowing one to “flip” through the book virtually. And in a literal sense, Fantagraphics has a 20-page preview of the 416-page Volume 1.

Tim O’Shea: I have to know–”I walked around with a red lollipop stuck to my butt”–was that a direct quote from the found diary that inspired Unlovable or a total (incredibly hilarious) creation of your mind?

Esther Pearl Watson: Well…I made that up.

O’Shea: The book getting picked up by Urban Outfitters, had you known this was possible or did the development pleasantly blindside you? What was your reaction when you found out?

Watson: This was a surprise. I put so much love into this book, I really hope people find it any way they can…and love it too.

O’Shea: The diary that inspired Unlovable was found in 1995, but you set the fictional version in 1987–was that an effort to distance the work even further from the inspirational source?

Watson: The diary was old (from the 80′s) when I found it.

O’Shea: Have you ever heard from women who think your work is based on a diary that they lost?

Watson: So many people come up to me and tell me they are Tammy…even guys.

O’Shea: Did the diary you initially found have any art in it?

Watson: None. But it should have. That’s why my version is an illustrated diary.

O’Shea: Can you give me a timeline of how the strips transitioned from your self-published minicomics to Bust magazine and then ultimately to this collection? Just seeing the time it take for the journey might give aspiring creators an idea of how long and hard you’ve worked to get to this point.

Watson: I did a bunch of drawings that made me crack up…showed some friends. Then forked over $1500 to have it off-set printed at a Christian print-shop down the street. When I went to pick up issue #1 they all said I was a very strange woman. I took that as a good sign. Sent out a bunch of copies to magazines. Bust called a few months later and had me do the back page comic. I had never illustrated a panel comic before. Each year, I save my pennies and published a new issue until 2008. Jordan Crane showed Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics one of my Unlovables. And then I had a contract and created a 700-page book dummy that we decided to split into 2 volumes. Working on Volume 2 now.

O’Shea: How much did your own teenage years serve as fodder for Unlovable (if at all)?

Watson: A lot. I was a lot like Tammy and still am. It’s everything I fear.

O’Shea: What was the thinking behind using a green tint on the pages (as opposed to straight black and white or another tint)? And in that same line of thinking, who can I compliment for the great 1980s hot pink cover with sparkle nail polish?

Watson: I wanted it to feel like I photocopied it. Full of flaws. As for the cover, crazy hot pink and glitter is exactly what Tammy would have chose! I also wanted it to stand out on Fantagraphics table at Comic Con so I could find my book real easy.

O’Shea: Looking through the collection as a whole, do you have certain entries that stand out as your personal favorites?

Watson: I love drawing Tammy 3/4 view or profile. All deformed.

Many of the stories are my favorite. I try to write work that makes me laugh and spit all over the paper while I’m inking.

O’Shea: What really appealed to me about these diary entries was Tammy’s penchant for fantasy versus her teenage failure to perceive reality. How hard was it to balance the theater of the absurd juxtaposed against her reality (for example, when she dreams of having a guy’s baby, but his only interest is to borrow her bike)?

Watson: I don’t know for sure if she picked her nose during a phone call or what she was thinking when a guy called her…but I tried to guess it out. I figure, I’m pretty close.