Friday, May 9, 2014
In punitively slashing the budgets of their own state colleges, legislators in the South Carolina House of Representatives have unwittingly given late-night comedians a great wealth of new material about narrow-mindedness, blind ideological loyalty and homophobia.
As reported in various media outlets including National Public Radio the College of Charleston had the audacity to assign to first-year students a book that acknowledges the existence and humanity of people who are not heterosexual. That book, the acclaimed Fun Home by Vermont cartoonist Alison Bechdel has also been adapted into an award-winning, Pulitzer-nominated off-Broadway musical.
The University of South Carolina Upstate, another school that state legislators deemed worthy of a good, hard spanking, did not assign Fun Home to first-year students, but did assign other works that dare to challenge the state’s centuries-long tradition of upholding heteronormativity.
Tags: fun home , alison bechdel , south carolina , homophobia , Image , Web Only
Thursday, April 24, 2014
The school continues to grow and diversify its programming. The latest addition is an MFA track in Applied Cartooning, which, according to a CCS press release, will explore "how comics can impact such diverse fields as health, business, public policy and education."
The central idea behind the program is that, with the growing popularity of cartoons in all kinds of communications, the future will bring an even broader array of, well, applications. With this new two-year-degree program, the school intends to better prepare its students for the workplace.
Tags: center for cartoon studies , comics , applied cartooning , cartoons , James Sturm , Marek Bennett , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Kibuishi was born in Tokyo but raised in California from childhood. While studying film at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he began drawing comics for the student newspaper. In 2004, he launched a critically acclaimed comics anthology called Flight.
The following year, Kibuishi's debut graphic novel, Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, won a Best Books for Young Adults award from the Young Adult Library Services Association. Amulet was released by Scholastic in 2007.
In an interview with Multiversity Comics, a website run by cartoon enthusiasts, Kibuishi explained that when Scholastic approached him with the Harry Potter project, he'd initially felt surprised:
"I love the originals and thought they shouldn’t really touch those, but then I began to realize that many of the kids reading my books weren’t old enough to be Harry Potter readers (something I confirmed on recent visits to elementary schools and libraries). They are just beginning to read longer and more complex works of fiction, and what better set of books to introduce than Harry Potter?Kibuishi will speak at CCS' commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17, 11 a.m. at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction.
Tags: comics , center for cartoon studies , kazu kibuishi , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Within the pages of Jeff Danziger’s recent book The Conscience of a Cartoonist, you’ll find some of the most trenchant political cartoons of the last decade and a half. But if you happened to be in need of a barbell or a cudgel, the book could fill those needs, too, in a pinch. This is a mighty tome.
“The reason it’s the size it is is that I wanted to do a complete job of talking about how the times have changed,” Danziger, 71, says by phone from his home in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. “The times” that he’s referring to are the years since September 11, 2001, a time period that provides the book’s narrative backbone. When future historians want to write about the tumultuous political changes of this era, they’d do well to study Danziger’s book. His cartoons are particularly keen, and often vitriolic, in responding to current events.
Tags: jeff danziger , center for cartoon studies , cartoons , editorial cartoons , tom tomorrow , politics , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Hey, our friend and former Vermont cartoonist laureate James Kochalka has a brand-new video game, designed in inimitable JK style. He's launching the game at a party — and rock show! — tonight at the BCA Center. That is all.
Tags: video game , james kochalka superstar , Image , Web Only
Monday, April 7, 2014
Alison Bechdel, the Bolton cartoonist best known for her long-running comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For," will deliver the Will Eisner Spring Lecture for the Center for Cartoon Studies on April 10. The lecture will take place not at the CCS' campus in White River Junction but at nearby Dartmouth College.
Bechdel, who discontinued "Dykes" in 2008, received tremendous acclaim for her illustrated memoir Fun Home, which was later turned into an off-Broadway musical that ended its run in January at New York City's Public Theater.
Bechdel followed that book with 2012's Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. That was the same year she won a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle, an organization devoted to LGBT people in the book industry. She also was profiled in the New Yorker.
2013's Eisner lecture was presented by cartoonist and comics historian Scott McCloud.
Alison Bechdel speaks on Thursday, April 10, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 100 of the Life Sciences Building at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.
Tags: comics , alison bechdel , center for cartoon studies , dykes to watch out for , fun home , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
For fans who can't get enough of James Kochalka, here's another opportunity to indulge yourself. On a site called Dear Teen Me — on which authors write letters to their teenage selves — the Burlington-based cartoonist has done just that. Not only that, but he includes a heartthrob photo of himself with hair!
The letter reveals what we already know, namely, that Kochalka has a lot of self-confidence. But it's interesting to note how he convinces himself — retroactively — to just let himself rip. Or, as we boomers used to say, to let his freak flag fly. A psychiatrist might read more into his mental self-psyching, but I think lines such as "Please, please remember to always let your ridiculous side shine through" (mission accomplished!) speak for themselves.
Kochalka, now 46, has mastered the art of keeping his inner child intact while having enough grown-up savvy to successfully create and market his cartoons in print, on the web, in comic books, TV shows, games and several series of children's books. To say nothing of his James Kochalka Superstar music career (see YouTube for any number of music vids).
Speaking of books, Kochalka's latest, The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza, is out now on First Second. As he notes, after a career in indie comics, this is his first book with a traditional publisher. He's also created a game called Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork.
For the record, Kochalka also contributes a weekly cartoon to Seven Days — the current series is "Elf Cat." But since you're reading a Seven Days blog, you probably already knew that. And I'd be remiss not to note that Kochalka was the first-ever Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont — a title he recently relinquished, after a three-year term, to Brookfield-based New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren.
Tags: james kochalka , dear teen me , glorkian warrior , cartoons , cartoonist laureate , ed koren , phoenix books , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 17, 2014
Vermont-based cartoonist Harry Bliss is known for his cartoons and occasional cover illustrations for the New Yorker. In addition, his comic strip Bliss runs in Seven Days and numerous other newspapers, and he has illustrated a series of children's picture books. Yesterday, Bliss learned that he's been named one of two recipients of the 2014 Maurice Sendak Fellowship. Designed to nurture the talents of artists who tell stories will illustration, the fellowship grants its recipients five weeks of bucolic isolation, the better to complete their work.
Sendak, the beloved children's book illustrator who died in 2012, established the fellowship in in 2010. In previous years, recipients would gather at Sendak's home in Ridgefield, Conn. This year, the location of the fellowship will be at another of Sendak's properties: the 150-acre Scotch Hill Farm in rural Cambridge, N.Y., located about 30 minutes from Manchester, Vt.
Bliss says he was surprised and delighted to receive the award, for which he did not know he'd been nominated. As he tells Seven Days in a phone interview, the letter that announced his award was the first he knew about it.
As it happens, Bliss knew Sendak fairly well. "He was a great guy and a big influence on me my whole life," the cartoonist says. "In fact, we traded artwork once. He wanted a New Yorker cover I'd done, and I traded it to him for a wonderful little piece from [Sendak's 1962 children's book] Chicken Soup with Rice." Sendak even customized the piece for him, Bliss says, adding a hockey stick and skates to a character's hand, much to Bliss' delight — he's a big hockey fan. "That was really super-cool," he says. "Maurice was a special man."
Tags: harry bliss , maurice sendak , sendak fellowship , scotch hill farm , ray negron , nora krug , Image , Web Only