Sunday Morning...

...have a great one!

I think this is a real stained glass window photo from a real church, but who knows. Sent to me by Tim 'Doc Ersatz' Viereck, from who'll you'll be hearing much more this week!

Have a fine Sunday, folks...

Morning, all --

The Center for Cartoon Studies graduation is today.

Here's the talk I'm giving the students and their families this morning;
I'm counting on all of them being too busy to have time to read my blog before heading out to the morning brunch, where they'll be subjected to this -- surely, once is enough
(but at least enjoying some of White River's finest dining at the Tip-Top Cafe).

This one's dedicated to a few folks:

To my daughter Maia and my son Daniel;
to James and Michelle;
and to the great Joe Kubert,
for making dreams come true, and showing me the path.

Enjoy -- and have a great weekend.
_____________________

I’m going to direct my talk today to the parents as much as the graduates and fellow CCSers, so please, bear with me.

All we have are our stories.

When I was a kid, growing up in northern VT, there were things we took for granted:

America was the greatest nation in the world -- General Motors made the best cars -- Chrysler, Pan-Am and TWA and Howard Johnson would be around forever, and -- stories and comic books were kid stuff.

Comicbooks were for us KIDS, not for grown-ups.

It was tough being the only kid in Duxbury, VT who wanted to draw comic books for a living.

My next-door neighbor, Mitch Casey, was a couple of years older than me; he was the first person I ever saw draw a comic book -- tiny home-made, stapled pamphlets, made by folding 8 1/2 x 11 paper over, drawing the comic page by page on each side, and selling them for milk money at school.

Mitch taught me to draw comics, but as he got older, he abandoned our collaborative comic-creating efforts -- girls and sports were more interesting.

I kept drawing.

I kept making up stories.

My father, a military man who served in four branches of the service and worked hard all his life, blue-collar through and through, had a tough time with this.

Drawing never seemed a very manly thing to do, and how was his son ever going to earn a living doing something so silly? My older brother and younger sister volunteered for the military -- that made perfect sense to my father -- but I kept drawing, against all opposition and odds and attempts to steer me to more adult concerns, and this never, ever made sense to him.

In 1968, when I was thirteen, it just didn’t make sense to want to draw comic books all one’s adult life. I might as well have said I wanted to live on one of the moons of Saturn.

In 1968, if I wanted to try and turn a friend on to what I considered the best in comics, the best I could do was loan him or her a stack of worn comicbooks, saying, “These really are great!” Nine times out of ten, these would be superhero comics -- most likely Marvel superhero comics -- and these were still easily dismissed as ephemeral, childish things.

In 1968, there were no comic BOOKS, the term ‘graphic novel’ didn’t even exist yet. TIN TIN was still relatively unknown in America, and the only evidence of manga in America were Saturday morning TV shows like ASTRO BOY, adapted from Osamu Tezuka’s classic MIGHTY ATOM manga series (though we didn’t know that).

In 1968, when the great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and great futurist and science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke joined to make the ultimate sf film, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, they populated their future with artifacts and trademarks of the American corporations certain to survive into the 21st Century: Pan-Am, Howard Johnson, and so on.

Like I said, we knew in our heart of hearts those American business icons would last forever.

A lot has changed.

Every single American corporation that appeared in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY no longer exists.

Chrysler no longer makes the best cars in the world -- in fact, they haven’t done so in decades. Chrysler is effectively no more, as of this past week; a shadow of its former self, a clutch of corporate assets to be sold off piecemeal by its current German owner.

But comic books are still alive and well. Comic books have been the wellspring of most of our summer blockbuster movies, habitually breaking opening weekend boxoffice records and now one of America’s major export successes.

In fact, America’s #1 export is no longer tangible goods -- steel, cars, manufactured goods -- but STORIES. Stories are the 21st Century’s coin of the realm, of the world.

Stories, characters, imaginary concepts, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES: movies, TV programming, music, novels, comicbooks and graphic novels. Many of America’s most lucrative exports derived from intellectual properties are adaptations of comic books and graphic novels, primary among them movie adaptations.

Comic books have grown up -- not only are there adult comics, but comic BOOKS -- GRAPHIC NOVELS -- have, for the first time in history, as of this past winter, eclipsed comicbooks in gross dollar sales. They are now in every book store, a known quantity, a desirable commodity.

This was unimaginable, a pipe dream, in 1968. But a generation dreamed -- the Will Eisners, Harvey Kurtzmans Jack Kirbys and Joe Kuberts of the world -- and dreams can come true.

But every generation has to MAKE their own dreams come true.

Every generation has to tell their stories to the next, TEACH the next, so that they can tell their stories -- so that they can dream, and realize their dreams.

A lot has changed.

For me, life changed when I attended the first comics college in North America, the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc. in Dover, New Jersey. I went in the fall of 1976, a little over 30 years ago; I was a member of the first class, ever.

For me, life changed when my father, diehard blue-collar military veteran that he was and still is, met the founder of that school, Joe Kubert -- a man’s man, a military vet, and a hard worker who raised a large family (five kids!) on what he’d earned drawing comic books -- and suddenly, what I’d wanted to do all my life made SENSE to my father. It WAS possible. It WAS -- well, OK.

I owe so much to Joe, and to his school, to my Kubert School classmates and everyone who was there. It was a dream of Joe’s to pass on all he and his generation knows to US -- and what a gift it was, and remains.

It is perhaps the greatest gift I’ve ever received, since my parents gave me life itself. Joe and his peers told us their stories, and taught us to tell our own. Thank you, Joe.

I was already publishing my first work -- earning my first paychecks -- before I finished my first year in that two-year program. I graduated from North America’s first-ever cartooning college in the spring of 1978. I was entering the comics industry in a time of great turmoil and collapse, but my peers and I made our way into the industry, bit by bit, drawing by drawing, story by story, job by job, and by the 1980s we were part of a generation that changed comics. We made our mark, as best we could. We earned livings and raised families.

My God, my daughter graduated from high school in that once-faraway future year -- 2001!

My son graduated from high school four years later.

Who would have thought, in 2001, I would even have a daughter? A son?

And that I would be able to raise them both on what I earned telling my stories and drawing comic books?

A lot has changed.

I told my stories, and those I shared with creators I was lucky enough to work with; I made my mark in comics for three decades, and thought it was time to move on.

But my work wasn’t done -- it was important to tell my stories and pass on all I know to the next generation.

How, then, could I resist the invitation, from James Sturm and Michelle Ollie, to teach the first-ever class at North America’s only other cartooning college?

Well, I couldn’t resist. And here we all are, today.

We have our stories, one and all.

It has been my great privilege to teach, draw with, and get to know your children -- now adults, all -- the pioneer, first-ever class at the SECOND comics college in North America, the Center for Cartoon Studies. It has been a great, grand adventure for all of us, and no other class will experience what THEY have experienced, accomplish what THEY have accomplished.

They have stories they alone know, and can tell.

Many of them have already shared their stories, their art. They have self-published, here, many comics. Many of them have already earned their first paychecks as cartoonists and illustrators, and have completed or launched work on their first graphic novels.

They are part of the first American generation to grow up without any negative baggage attached to comic books. They are the first American generation to grow up with ADULT comics, GRAPHIC NOVELS, a part of their landscape, a reality rather than a dream.

They know there is nothing silly about telling stories. They value stories, the greatest American commodity today.

They are part of the first American generation in which intangibles -- stories, characters, ideas, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES -- are America’s #1 export, the fuel that drives the engines of pop culture, and they -- these students, these graduates -- are FULL OF IDEAS.

They have stories, and will make and tell many more. They know HOW TO PUT THEM DOWN ON PAPER, into digital space and the world, they have the necessary knowledge and tools to make their way in the world.

What they have, today, is worth more than Chrysler and Pan-Am and Howard Johnson, worth more than American cars or steel. In the 21st Century, stories are worth more than all that.

Your faith in them, their art, their stories -- in their dreams -- is commendable and wonderful.

They are entering as uncertain and difficult a world as any prior generation has. That’s scary, yes, but they are armed with their own unique stories and skills, their own unique visions and voices, and with the community they have formed here, with one another.

They are better prepared for the 21st Century than any of we who grew up in the 20th Century -- believe in them, because they believe in themselves -- and they are RIGHT to.

It’s THEIR world now. They have stories to tell. I want to see, hear, read them all.

It has been an honor to teach you, to know you, to work with you, to draw with you, to see you here, today, with your families. I look forward to knowing you, drawing with you, reading YOUR stories, YOUR comics and graphic novels, for years to come -- for the rest of my life.

May you know one another, love one another, dream and draw and change the world together, from this day forward. May you read one another’s comics for the rest of your lives, and teach all you know to the next generation.

YOU are the first graduating class of the Center for Cartoon Studies, and we applaud you.

And to Think it All Started Here...

Yep, that's James Sturm and I moving his studio across the street to what was, in the summer of 2005, the new Center for Cartoon Studies building. Hard to believe it's been two years, but here we are -- the first graduating class, about to graduate -- tomorrow.

It's been a heady, at times heavy week at the Center for Cartoon Studies. We've completed the senior thesis review sessions, and I'm savoring a little breather between that intense block of work (the prep in particular, though I loved reading and re-reading the thesis projects -- pretty stunning group of cartoonists going out into the big, bad world this Saturday!). Tomorrow is graduation, and I've got a little work to do to prep for that.

The intensity has been in part revolving around the mounting finality of this transitional period. It's been sad to say goodbye to some folks, and that will accelerate tomorrow, as many of the folks who have been absolutely central to our day-to-day lives together are leaving after commencement to their respective family homes. I had lunch with Rich Tommaso yesterday; Rich has become a great friend, we've bonded over a number of shared interests and Rich was an invaluable part of the Drawing Workshop I helmed for the Freshmen class this spring. Rich and graduate Caitlin Plovnick are moving to Brooklyn on Sunday, and I sure am going to miss them. Of course, we'll all keep in touch, and be seeing each other in the years to come, but the reality of the community of the past two years going through inevitable, here-and-now change that necessarily revolves around the departure of so many key community members is a real roller-coaster ride.

That said, part of the transition, too, is the evidence of the new incoming freshman class of 2009 -- CCS discussion board posts from incoming fall students has been ongoing all month, and soon we'll see a new community arrive, merging with the standing CCS community and bringing all the excitement, change and transformation that implies.

Ah, CCS; I'm now part of a college community, and all that entails. I love it.

______________

I saw Paul Verhoeven's new film Zwartboek/Black Book last night, and I can't recommend it highly enough. This is Verhoeven's best film in years, and a genuine return to form -- what The Pianist was for Roman Polanski, Zwartboek/Black Book is for Verhoeven.

For fellow Verhoeven fans (Steve Perry, take heed!), it's absolutely critical to note that this film isn't just his return to his Dutch roots, but also reunites Verhoven and writer Gerard Soeteman, who was absolutely central to Verhoeven's often brilliant pre-Hollywood body of work. In fact, Soeteman was Verhoeven's primary collaborative partner in the whole of the director's pre-Hollywood career arc, scripting and co-scripting what remain Verhoeven's best films, beginning with Verhoeven's debut feature Wat zien ik/Business Is Business (1971) and blossoming with Turks fruit/Turkish Delight (1973) and Keetje Tippel (1975), which in many ways provides a blueprint for Zwartboek, as did Soeteman/Verhoeven's breakthrough international hit Soldaat van Oranje/Soldier of Orange (1977). Zwartboek is almost a perfect fusion of Keetje Tippel and Soldaat van Oranje, chronicling as it does the often harrowing experiences of a Dutch Jewish woman (Carice van Houten, giving a powerhouse performance) struggling to survive WW2 in Holland, and the convoluted tangle of loyalty, deceit, devotion and corruption that entails.

Soeteman and Verhoeven built upon the success of Soldaat van Oranje with the excellent Spetters (1980), the marvelously delirious De Vierde Man/The Fourth Man (1983, which also introduced actor Thom Hoffman to international audiences; Hoffman features prominently in Black Book), and concluded this ripe collaborative streak with Flesh+Blood (1985, aka The Rose and the Sword), which sadly led to an acrimonious split of the team as Verhoeven rushed to Hollywood and launched that phase of his career by directing an episode of HBO's The Hitchhiker ("Last Scene," 1986) and the classic Robocop (1987).

That Soeteman and Verhoeven are back together is something to celebrate; that they are also hard at work at a second 21st Century collaborative effort, Azazel, is tremendous news, and promises Verhoeven may at last be free of the restraints Hollywood placed on his creative life (his last American film, Hollow Man, 2000, was derivative and disappointing at best). As already noted, this new work also reunites Verhoeven with Dutch actors from his classic Soeteman era: Thom Hoffman (who was Herman, the central object of desire in De Vierde Man), Derek de Lint (Alex in Soldaat van Oranje), Dolf de Vries (Turks fruit, Jack in Soldaat van Oranje, Dr. de Vries in De Vierde Man), etc. are familiar faces to Verhoeven fans, and it's exciting to see the chemistry onscreen anew.

All this makes Black Book the theatrical sleeper of 2007 thus far. Don't miss Zwartboek/Black Book if it's playing near you, and I'll post a review proper next week when I start squirting those overdue Cine-Ketchup packets all over the keyboard. It stands, along with Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others and El Laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth, as the best film I've seen thus far this year.

_______________

Sorceror's Apprentice: Bush, Gonzales (NY Times photo)

Speaking of "loyalty, deceit, devotion and corruption," in real life,

this week's Congressional testimony yesterday of James B. Comey, former Deputy Attorney General under John Ashcroft, was a real jaw-dropper

and demonstrates the monstrous extremes that the Bush White House pursued to carry out its illegal, secret spying program against the people of the United States. I'm no Ashcroft fan, mind you, but it's startling to see how vast the ethical gulf between Ashcroft's reign and Gonzales's dynasty in the Justice Department really is, and how far we've fallen.

If you're clueless on this, it's time to catch up ("...an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source...") --

-- there's no more damning evidence of the corruption rampant in the Justice Department, and how irresponsibly current Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's behavior has been (and how fiercely he has exercised and exercises his loyalty to his President, placing that above US law and our Constitution).

Bye, bye, Wolfowitz (if you have the computer/high-speed access, also check out the two 'related videos' on the left menu bar at the Yahoo News site, particularly President Bush's gobsmacked incredulity); hello whatever next uber-corrupt crony President Bush appoints --

-- and we wonder (like children) why American credibility is so shot in the eyes of the world.

Have a great Friday, one and all...

Whoa, Blog Plagiarism!

Hey, this rip is busted! Prudence Shaun News is ripping off my blog verbatim -- ballsy!

I've posted a comment to this blog-borrowing-blog, and my thanks to eagle-eyed Rick Veitch for catching this -- and I'm willing to bet this post Rick caught online is gone by the time many of you click on the link above. But who knows -- I mean, it's weird, really.

As of this posting, at about 7:25 PM, on my own blog, the site sports a verbatim lift of

my own February 5th post from this year,

presented sans graphics.

Thanks for catching this, Rick! Anyone else find any similar hanky-panky going on out there, let me know ASAP, please and thank you.

Cool Cat

Tuco lovin' the sun (photo by G. Michael Dobbs)

Cool Daddy: I was on local TV -- WCAX-TV (Burlington, VT's primary TV station) -- in a story about the Center for Cartoon Studies.

Check it out; scroll down to the "Top Stories- Drawn Here Parts 1 and 2."

Note that one CCSer (hey, Emily!) says, "I was watching it on Windows Media Player on my PC at work and it went right to the part about the school but apparently if you try to watch it on a Mac it plays the whole newscast from the beginning which is a pain."

Full day of CCS duties today; I'll write something more tomorrow. Have a great Wednesday...

Zombies, Brickbats & Dragonflies

With real spring hitting, the black flies are finally out, along with the blessings of night moths and my first glimpse of butterflies and dragonflies yesterday by daylight. I love this time of year -- so, to commemorate the new awakening, here's some early morning dragonflies for you. Dragonflies courtesy of my daughter Maia Bissette ('Technicfarce' c 2007 Maia Rose Bissette) -- Thanks, Maia!

Whoa, sobering news yesterday for Chrysler's 80,000 US employees, and another major landmark in the changing times as we continue to lurch into the 21st Century.

Don't underestimate the import of this devastating turn for the auto manufacturer, which unmoors one of the true 20th Century corporate giants those of my generation grew up with as an economic anchor, for better or worse.

Seismic shocks of another kind are continuing to hammer the fringes of the Bush Administration, apart from our ruinous foreign policies and wars:

A panel of executives at the World Bank just ruled that its President (and Bush appointee) Paul Wolfowitz broke the bank's code of conduct and violated the terms of his contract,

but the big news this morning is that the second highest official in the US Justice Department, Paul McNulty, is resigning -- maybe Alberto Gonzales will yet have to pay the piper for his crimes against the Constitution?

Time will tell... keep an eye on these ongoing situations.

Not having enough real-life apocalyptic catastrophes in our own lives, my stepson Mike and I dashed out last night for the viral armageddon opus 28 Weeks Later. I had some fun with it; the film is an invigorating and sturdily made outing for most of its running time, but ran out of gas in its final act. Six+ screenwriters credited, and nothing new to add to its subgenre; it's 20th Century Fox's genre subsidiary Fox Atomic doing its bit for keeping derivative traditions we used to depend upon cheapjack producers to keep alive back in the '80s (and the second such Fox Atomic outing I've seen in a little over a month, on the heels of The Hills Have Eyes 2, which was nastier, meatier, more satisfying fare for this depraved horror addict). Still, nice to see a flick with Mike, and we enjoyed the time out -- more on 28 Weeks Later when I play Cine-Ketchup next week (after a long hiatus posting such comments, though I've seen tons of movies). I hope to see Paul Verhoeven's Black Book before then, too (a return to form for a one-time masterful director?)... lots to talk about in that department.

But here's what I really want to share with you all this fine rainy Tuesday, to wind up on a cheerier note. This just in from Colin Mathieson and Dave West of Accent UK, aimed at contributors to the Zombies anthology, but worth sharing with all of you as a report of that collection's successful debut and an update:

Dear All

Just back from Bristol earlier today so brief update on what was probably our best ever convention!

We’re very pleased to report that Zombies was a well received hit with record sales and an overwhelmingly positive response. Everyone commented on the quality of the strips, the design and the printing with the result that there was a real buzz about the book.

Thankfully many of you were there and able to share in the moment and enjoy what had to be one of the busiest Bristols ever (despite the weather!). It was great catching up with you all and registering everyone’s delight with the way the book turned out and hear of your own creative projects and ideas for Robots – actually we had several ‘new’ interested writers and artists wanting to contribute to next year’s Robots so we’re expecting another strong batch of submissions.

"An Alphabet of Zombie" (c) 2007 SR & Daniel Bissette

We are hoping for a wide coverage and distribution with us being approached over the weekend by no less than 5 separate retailers to stock both Zombies and our other release Wolfmen, with provisional deals set up with 2 others! We also had an encouraging meeting with Diamond’s representatives (and await their USA panel review with interest) so your work is getting the best chance of a wide audience and will hopefully complement and highlight your own individual projects.

Special congratulations must also go to Andy Winter, whose Hero Killers book deservedly won this year’s Eagle for favourite British black and white comic book. Andy’s award nicely follows last year’s success for fellow Zombies contributor Dave Hitchcock’s Spring Heeled Jack series, so well done chaps!

A fuller report on Bristol will follow on the website in due course and we’ll keep you informed of Zombies progress but in the meantime thanks once again for all your hard work and being a successful part of our annual anthology.

Cheers

Colin M and Dave W

Colin added, "Zombies had a tremendous reception – your cover really caught everyone’s attention and when they saw the quality of the strips inside, it was an easy sell! Several buyers mentioned your Indie Spinner interview too, so that proves the plugging works!!"

Shameless huckster Bissette signing off, reminding you to

keep an eye on the Accent UK site for photos, updates, news and ordering info -- remember, Zombies does not yet have a US distributor, so you may want to order your copies now via Accent UK --

-- and to have a great Tuesday, one and all. Cheers!

Top o' the World to You...

Monday Musings

There's a little more on the Ascutney climb to share with you all this morning, largely thanks to the arrival of photos from the trip itself and scans (compliments of CCS no-longer-just-a-freshmen Bryan Stone) of the two pages I drew between 3:30 and 5 AM the morning after. A little explanation is in order, though, before you get a peek at those two pages.

Here's Bryan's photo of the whole CCS hiking party last Wednesday atop the fire tower on Mount Ascutney -- from left to right, Chuck Forsman, Ross Wood Studlar, Dane Martin, Alex Kim, Sean Morgan, Peter Money and yours truly -- since he snapped the photo, Bryan is absent from this shot.

However, I know Peter and Sean took some photos up there, too, so hopefully we'll have a complimentary shot featuring Bryan up on the blog before the week is out.

As you can see from these two photos, it was a grand and glorious day weather-wise. Bryan posted his pix online, and

you can see them all here, followed by more photos from the CCS Montreal trip (including more Drawn & Quarterly office shots).

Now, like I said, a little explanation is in order this morning.

You see, the following two pages of Bissette comics art are the concluding two pages of an epic battle James Sturm orchestrated and conducted in his CCS cartooning class two or so weeks ago. I only know it as Fight Comics -- no direct correlation to the Fight Comics of the Golden Age, that I know of -- and it looked to me (correct me if I'm wrong, CCSers) like every member of the freshmen class created a character for the brawl, and via some arcane democratic or tyrannical system I'm not privy to, an order was voted upon, raffled, designated or divined for each artist and their respective character to have a one-to-two page face-off, with the winner of each match then going on to the next match, until by process of creative collaborative elimination only two characters were left.

In the end, James asked me if I'd draw the concluding page(s) -- in essence, end the battle, conclude the climax, decide the winner and hence get James off the hook if anyone was unhappy with the resolution (note: "It's Bissette's fault!" has now entered a new era of relevance and validity for a whole new generation). It was also, of course, an honor, but also a duty. A duty to CCS, and to James, and to all who ply the inky trade. My Captain called, and I must answer. My Commander-in-Chief beckoned, and I obeyed. The orders were given, the sails were set, the die was cast, the shit hit the fan.

I was handed a stack of odd-sized photocopies, and instructed to resolve the seemingly unresolvable, pitching a character named "Bryan Stone" -- shown in the character design sheet lifting his glasses and blasting deadly light rays from his eyes, like Cyclops in the X-Men -- against a character both adorable and ungainly, the 'Baby With Adult Legs.' The kid sure is cute, but man, those hairy adult male legs just put you right off your Maypo, bunky.

[Photo: The real Bryan Stone and Joe Lambert; photo by Becca Lambert.]

Now, Bryan Stone, as you may have determined this late in this morning's post, is a real guy.

He's an adorable guy, in fact, just as sweet-natured, benevolent, kind, attentive and mild-mannered as any person I've ever met (and a heckuva cartoonist, too). Bryan Stone was created by -- well, his parents. The real Bryan Stone, that is.

However, the deadly-eye-ray-blasting Bryan Stone was created by

JP Coovert,

also one hell of a cartoonist and a fellow no-longer-just-a-freshman at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Baby With Adult Legs was created by

Joe Lambert,

another motherfucker of a cartoonist and no-longer-just-a-freshman CCSer.

[Photo: The real JP Coovert, photo by Joe Lambert.]

So, this is what James handed to me. The fate of two comics characters just out of the incubator, barely in the world more than a week but already battle-tested and toughened by ink-and-paper warfare -- babes in the woods, yes (literally, in the case of Baby With Adult Legs), but already trench-war-hardened vets.

But it was not just their fate I held in my hands, but that of their creators -- cuddly Joe Lambert and huggable JP Coovert -- and, damn it, that of the real, flesh-and-blood Bryan Stone! A man's man, cruelly thrust (by JP) into a world of panels, pages, pus, puke and panic!

How would I resolve this conundrum without inflicting undue (due is OK) agony on any one, maybe two of these virginal young cartoonists, aching to pop their inky cherries against the calloused rubber condom wall of the real world?

How would I end this senseless violence, this epochal combat, without letting down one or more of these budding geniuses, who are so eager to spew their creative juices into the collective womb of our open, festering brainpans?

How could I condone the sadistic, no doubt visually glorious murder of either Bryan Stone, death-ray-eye-conduit though he be, or Baby With Adult Legs, the toddler on ten pins, the Titan Tyke, the spittle-flecked sprinter?

How?

How?

How?

Now, there's one other player in this drama -- he-who-must-never-be-forgotten by we who ply the inky trade here at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and most of all not to be overlooked by we who teach the inky trade at CCS.

And that, my friends, is Inky Solomon.

What can I possibly say about CCS's spiritual leader, the legendary cartoonist and teacher Inky Solomon, that has not been said before (and better) by others?

Though the pen-and-ink Inky has been delineated (and co-created, in his way) by James Sturm and Seth, legendary cartoonists in their own right, Inky Solomon has nestled into the souls of all who dwell at CCS.

He has swept away the pine needles and softened the stone floors of our hearts, carefully prepared the kindling we all harbor and built a warming little fire in our bellies, fueling the comics jones we share until it erupts into raging bonfires of creative life! Inky is our Dolemite, making of us all Human Tornadoes; he is our beatific Buddha, our jazzy Jesus, our infinite Inky!

So, troubled though I was by the task placed within my hands, stern though the Sturm mission was now yolking my sturdy shoulders, fragile be the lives laid in my sweaty palms, frightful the soul-crushing potential of any misstep I might take, I turned to our own CCSolomon, Inky -- the Inky within.

I consulted my inner Inky, the calm core of peace and tranquility that a half-century of life cartooning has coalesced, and determined the following:

1. I would not 'decide' anything. Life would decide.

2. If Joe Lambert showed up Wednesday morning for the Mount Ascutney hike, Baby With Adult Legs would win.

3. If either JP (creator of Bryan Stone, comics character) or Bryan Stone (comics character incarnate) showed up Wednesday morning for the hike, Bryan Stone would win.

4. If either Joe and JP, or Joe and Bryan, showed up, the battle would win (in typical comicbook fashion) in a draw -- a draw, with neither winning nor losing, but both ending up in a happy, wonderful, heavenly place, except there would be no My Little Ponies there (surely, a circle of hell is inhabited by those little bastards).

5. If none of the trio showed up, both characters would die horrible, agonizing, extremely graphic and terribly grueling deaths.

Thus it was decided; thus Wednesday morning came and went, and thus this was the fateful conclusion I wrote, drew and lettered Thursday morning, as the sun rose and the new day began:

Note: Joe Lambert and James Sturm are already working on scanning the complete Fight Comic and posting it in some form online soon. I'll keep you posted (pun intended), and I'm as eager as any of you to see/read it all!

PS: This is the final week of the Spring semester here at the Center for Cartoon Studies -- a fateful week for us all. Graduation is this coming Saturday, our first graduation ever. We've already had some heartbreak, some tears and fond farewells as some of our number move on into their summers or into their lives, away from CCS and White River Junction and this growing creative community; we're already into the momentous evaluation of the senior final thesis projects, with two full days ahead of 9 AM to 5 PM one-on-one assessments. It's a heady week here -- send your best to the CCS students, those with us, those departed; those moving into their new lives in the real world, those moving into their second year; those coming new to the fold and experience this coming fall.

We're at a crossroads and the shifting of a new axis as definitive, new and unexplored as that we encountered at the very beginning of the school's existence in September of 2005.

Wish us all luck, please.

Here's to CCS, one and all!

May Inky be with you all -- have a great Monday!

PPS: My old friend Neil Gaiman has posted some lovely photos and a few comments about this past weekend's historic wedding of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie

here, so enjoy.

Nice to know they're wed at last, and much love to both, where ever they are.

We're Not Quite Done Yet, and Already We're Nostalgic:
The Infection of Time, Or,
A Sunday Morning Peek at
Joe Lambert's CCS Photos --

As I spend the weekend pouring over an incredible array of final thesis projects from the Center for Cartoon Studies seniors and gifts of final projects from most of the CCS freshmen (soon to be seniors!), I'm moved to steer you to

Joe Lambert's pix of the May 2nd CCS Drawing Workshop session in my new backyard,

which was immediately followed that very afternoon with a drawing session from this miniature city we had constructed the week before -- a whirlwind of activity Joe has also documented via pix (scroll down to Joe's "Box City" photo album posting).

Left: Morgan Piellizilla. Hey, we still have to 'Godzilla' the city, guys and gal!

All of Joe's pix illuminate this old Myrant post on a recent Drawing Workshop exercise, if you want more context --

-- and although we're only two days past the completion of final projects (for both classes), I'm already revisiting and working on revised Drawing Workshop syllabus outlines to streamline and improve the whole two-semester effort for next year. Sigh. So little time, so much to draw and teach.

Joe's blog is always worth a visit, currently opening with photos from the CCS trip to Montreal (including a peek inside the Drawn & Quarterly offices, for those curious about that megalithic corporate universe) and other CCS activities. Thanks, Joe!

(More CCS in Montreal pix are here, compliments of fellow freshmen Penina Gal. Thanks, Penina!)

Here's a link to a venue for some of Joe's comics, too, which are -- well, excellent.

(Fair is fair: since I'm linking in thanks to Joe's sites, Penina's fine illos and comics creations are also visible here, and they're pretty damned good, too.)

Now, before I get into today's intensive reading, re-reading and note-taking from the thesis projects, I'm off to the flea market -- yep, it's that time of year.

Clear, sunny, but cold -- ah, flea market season in a new part of Vermont. What wonders await me?

Have a great Sunday, one and all --

Saturday. Stuff.

Hey, Look, Mom! I'm in the Christian Science Monitor! Nifty article and pix on our beloved Center for Cartoon Studies,

link compliments of Rutland Herald reporter, Trees & Hills Comics group co-founder, and all-around swell guy Dan Barlow. Hey, Dan, and thanks.

And if you didn't get to check this out earlier this week when I posted it, here's Indie Spinner Rack's interminable interview with yours truly. C'mon, it's the weekend -- you've got time now, don'tcha?

John Totleben hisself send this link, exclaiming, "Check this out -- pretty freakin' wild!" and whatdyaknow, it sure is!

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Most Dangerous Cyborg in the World continues to spread doubt, discord, distress and terror in the Middle East...

Have a Great Saturday!

PS:

Ah, I see on Neil's blog that Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie are getting married tomorrow.

Congrats on that, hope Neil has a great trip, and -- well, I'm happy for 'em. My last-ever trip to the UK was graced by a marvelous stay in Northampton with Alan and Melinda (a couple of years before the irrevocable falling-out with Alan), and I really loved Melinda. It was fun having the opportunity to work with both of them on the initial stages of Lost Girls, throughout its Taboo launch, and I wish them the best in their life ahead, together. Congrats, Alan and Melinda.

Zombies Land at British Con!

All Not Yet Eaten, But Give Them Time...

Just got a couple of emails this week from Accent UK's Colin Mathieson -- the Zombies anthology arrived hot from the presses from the printer, and Colin is overjoyed.

He wrote Thursday, "Just a quick note Steve to let you and the CCS students know that Zombies is back from the printers and looks absolutely awesome!

The print quality and new UK format is really effective and showcases everyones work a treat and as for the cover, well with the standout red and white on top of your image, it really is something and guaranteed to stand out at Bristol this weekend."

Yep, Zombies makes its world debut this weekend at the Bristol International Comic Expo in Bristol, England. (For those who care, this marks my 'return' to comics for most folks, though my retirement from the US comics industry stands.)

"We'll take plenty of photos and post a report on our site afterwards which I'll forward to you," Colin writes, "and there should also be some of the Danish guys from last year's Copenhagen festival (where Zombies of course was given life!) so will pass on your hellos too."

Thanks, please do, and as you read this Colin and his Accent UK compadre Dave West are already en route or setting up at Bristol. Here's the scoop, for any of you reading who are in the UK:

The UK's premiere comics event, THE BRISTOL INTERNATIONAL COMIC EXPO, returns for its ninth year on the 12th & 13th May 2007 at the British Empire & Commonwealth Exhibition Hall and Ramada Plaza Hotel, Bristol, UK.

Home of the Eagle Awards, panels, workshops, cream teas and scones with many guests including Dave Gibbons, Kurt Busiek, Brian Vaughan, Jeffrey Brown, Ian Gibson, Bryan Talbot, Charlie Adlard, Duncan Fegredo, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and many more.

Loads of indie creators including of course Accent UK's much anticipated launch of Zombies, a bumper 168 page anthology of all things Zombies from a host of European and North and South American creators who prove there's still 'life' in the undead genre yet!

Accent UK are also releasing Wolfmen, an original tale of Gangsters, London, Horror, intrigue and surprises from Dave West and Andy Bloor.

Zombies will retail for $10 and Wolfmen's 56 pages at $5 with very limited sketchbook editions also available at the show.

Further details on Bristol are posted here, at this link,

and here's the Accent UK site.

Ah, there 'tis. Zombies is out at last, and I'm eager to see it -- the copies for CCS and myself and my son Dan will be on the way next week. I'll have some copies to sell via my new website (its debut 'US exclusive') -- More info soon!

Have a great Friday, one and all...

Late night (for me) post:

This just in --

"...His words were greeted with restrained applause..." -- ya, I bet they were. Cheney dodged service, but talks the talk.

And:

This spam.

Did you all get this one, too?
_____________

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE
YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I
CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO
HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE
TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM
CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR
ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN
COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY
ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES
OF
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE
SOURCES
IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE
WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT
TO
ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF
KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.

MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST
OF
SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST.

THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS
PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF
MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND
JAPANESE PARTNERS.

BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER REMAINED IN CONTROL OF
THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.

MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL
OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM
ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM
FROM POWER.

UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOULDER THE
BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY COST THE
SUM
OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000 -
$200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM
MANAGEMENT.

WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO
ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND
OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR
DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE
SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD CHENEY,
WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD OF THE
ALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE PROFESSIONAL
DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF A CHEVRON
OIL TANKER AFTER HER.

I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE
PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS
IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU
MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE
APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL
AT
THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE
YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100%
LEGAL.
IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT
OUR
INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES
WILL
BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT
NUMBERS BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

Switchboard: 202.456.1414 Comments: 202.456.1111 Fax: 202.456.2461
Email:
president@whitehouse.gov --

___________

(Compliments of Jean-Marc Lofficier!)

Old Hikers Never Die,
They Just Smell That Way

So, Peter Money and I led a valiant group of CCS students up Mount Ascutney yesterday.

Well, Peter led. Actually, Sean Morgan -- CCS senior, Brownsville local, a man who knows the mountain and was climbing like a mountain goat -- led. Peter and Sean led, joined by fellow vet woodsman and CCS senior Ross Wood Studlar and freshmen Chuck Forsman, Dane Martin, Bryan Stone and Alex (Joon-Ho) Kim. A fine time was had by all.

As the oldest poopster of the party, 52-year-old Bissette held his own, sweeping behind for at least the final third of the climb, but I kept up and I made it to the top. But man, oh man, it was a climb.

I hadn't hiked a mountain in over nine years -- I used to hike

the beloved North Duxbury landmark Camel's Hump

regularly in my youth. Even a couple of winter hikes, mind you -- I was a boy scout, and I loved hiking.

But I was in my forties when I made my last climb (Haystack in Wilmington), and I tell you, I was feeling the years yesterday. Particularly in the last mile of the 3.2 or so mile hike uphill. The equivalent hike down went much quicker and (per usual) tested a whole different set of leg and foot muscles, but it was easier on the ol' bod that the climb up. Gravity, you know.

As Dirty Harry quipped in Magnum Force, "A man's got to know his limitations." I used to climb Camel's Hump's 4,080+ feet once or twice a year and love it, but I was a much younger man then. Mount Ascutney is far shy of Camel's Hump's altitude (see below), but it sure marks my current limit -- though I fully intend to visit the peak this summer, I'll take the car up to the near-summit parking lot and walk that mile versus the 3+ miles uphill we managed yesterday. It's unlikely I'll be making the hike we made yesterday ever again in this lifetime, unless it's as ashes in an urn for my students to spread over the summit.

Peter and I planned this way back in December 2006 and this past January. It was our intention to bring the entire freshmen class on this end-of-the-year sojourn, but alas, due to a number of issues I shan't go into here, that didn't happen as we'd hoped. Still, we stuck to our staffs and those who could join us, did.

Since the state park proper is closed until May 18th -- the day before CCS graduation -- planning a day trip that involved simply driving ourselves to just shy of the summit (there's apparently a parking lot between the south peak and summit; a less-than-a-mile foot trail takes you to the summit) was impossible. So, we decided, Peter and I, to make the climb to the peak on the Brownsville Trail, and just go for it.

Who is this Peter Money cat? He teaches at CCS, and he's a poet and a good man. Check him out.

What's this Mount Ascutney thang? Rather than bore you with historical and contextual blather, here's the Wikipedia listing for the mountain,

and here's the tech-stuff at Peakbagger.com, for those into such matters.

We made the climb. It was memorable, a great, grand experience. I'll write about it in some detail later -- jeez, I not only climbed it, I came home and prepped for the coming week of CCS and drew two complete pages for James Sturm's CCS class today (the climax to a class 'round robin' 'versus' comic, which concludes with my "Baby With Adult Legs vs. Bryan Stone" final round -- Baby With Adult Legs created by Joe Lambert, Bryan Stone by -- uh, Bryan's mom, I think. And his Dad. I hope.) -- so I'm too pooped to blog much today.

I'm not sure how high up we were -- there's some confusion in the available literature on the mountain.

Ross checked his hiking guide in the drive to Peter's house to eat after we were off the mountain, and reported it was 2600 feet, rated as a 'strenuous climb' (that it was!), but I don't know about that height.

We passed the North Summit sign, marking 2600+ feet, and there was still considerable climbing after that. Since the parking lot for the park is reportedly at an elevation of 2,800 feet, I reckon we climbed at least a wee bit higher than that, whatever the hiking guide books say otherwise. I know that after the North Summit sign, we climbed for at least another half hour, and it was all climbing!

Anyhoot, we made it to the observation tower. This was originally a fire tower; the cabin was long ago removed and the whole contraption has been relocated, and the views are breathtaking, encompassing the entire landscape round Ascutney's peak. We didn't make it to Brownsville Rock, which was about another 1/4 mile northwest of the summit -- Sean told us about this (it's a hang gliding launch site), but going to and coming from the tower we passed the sign for the Rock and simply continued on our way; nobody even commented on it. Next time, eh?

If you're into going yourself some time, check out the Vt. State Parks site, with mucho links to this and that relevant to such a trek.

Here's all the trail particulars, too, for those in any way interested in reading more about the hike.

OK, enough on that -- for now. If anyone who had cameras send me pics, I'll post 'em here!

In any case, gentlemen -- Peter, Chuck, Sean, Dane, Ross, Alex, Bryan -- it was a real honor to climb that rock with all of you, and it's a day I'll savor to the end of my days. Thanks for making it happen!

Things to ponder today:

As Head Honcho Asswipe continues to dodge his own culpability for this war-funding situation, acting like the sociopathic self-centered 'no one says no to me' colostomy bag leakage he continues to come across as (if it were so damned vital, why leave it out of the federal budget every single year of these interminable wars and require seven ancillary budgets to be voted through make up for the shortfall?),

and Vice-Cyborg McQuack-Quack further aggravates what Condi already fucked up so adroitly last week ("So we blew your country and all existing infrastructures completely to shit on false pretenses -- get over it! Get up on your own damned feet and act like men instead of like you're ravaged by four years of war, still without clean water, electricity, food or any shred of civilized security! What are you, a pack of pansies?"),

let's have another reality check in assessing how completely they've only spiraled the increasingly dire fiscal situation of the average American:

"The real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers has declined steadily: they earned $27,060 in real dollars in 1979, $25,646 in 2005."

- Heather Boushey and Christian E. Weller, "What the Numbers Tell Us," in James Lardner and David A. Smith, eds., Inequality Matters (New York: 2005), p. 36.

"The 2006 round of tax cuts delivers 70 percent of its benefits to the richest 5 percent of Americans, and 6.5 percent to the bottom 80 percent."

- Clive Crook, "The Height of Inequality," Atlantic, September 2006, p. 36.

Have a Great Thursday, You Paupers!

By George!

-- And I Do Mean, "By George" --
and By Gerianne (Smart)!
A Wednesday AM Ode to
The Summer of Walter Hacks

I’ll be out almost the entire day with poet and fellow Center for Cartoon Studies faculty Peter Money and however many of our students can join us to hike the local mountain I’m most intent upon hiking. Thus, it seems proper to set my blog compass closer to home and savor a couple of the great things about my home and home state.

So, a little taste of Vermont today, and hope you enjoy the change of pace.

You'd be hard-pressed to find much on my old high school pal George Woodard online,

even on Wikipedia,

though he's a Vermont treasure.

Oddly enough, a web search won't take you to George's most visible and vital online presence,

the site George and Gerianne Smart created for their in-post-production feature film The Summer of Walter Hacks. It's well worth a visit (give it a couple of shots to load; for some reason, it's a tough nut to crack via some servers, but it'll pop up eventually).

However, even that site is woefully incomplete, in part because George is such a truly humble, self-effacing fellow. Allow me to toot the man's horn this morning a bit, since he won't.

George has always been comfortable performing on stage as long as I’ve known him, but painfully shy about public speaking or any public arena requiring his expressing his own emotions -- it’s a conundrum puzzling to those who assume performing is the same as exposing one’s feelings publicly, when in fact these are polar opposites. George is a born performer -- give him a guitar or banjo and turn him loose, he’ll have a fine time and see to it you will, too. Ask him to mingle at a party or speak at a microphone, and he’d just as soon crawl under a rock. It’s just how he is, how it is, for many performers -- actors, musicians, etc. Fortunately, George’s performing chops extend to film performance, too, and he’s become one of Vermont’s finest actors, along with Stowe resident Rusty DeWees (The Logger).

I've known George and his brother Steve (now Waterbury Center's best vet, as in animal doctor) since grade school, having grown up within driving distance of the Woodard family farm in Waterbury Center, VT. George and I ended up appearing on stage together in some plays at our high school, Harwood Union High, in Duxbury, VT -- including a co-star stint as Barnaby (me) and Cornelius (George) in Harwood's musical production of Hello, Dolly -- and sharing a few key teachers at Harwood, primary among them creative writing teacher Carol Collins (about whom I'll write more in a bit, promise). We did some other stuff together, too -- I have very fond memories of catching a few choice 1970s movies with both George and Steve on the big screens back in the day, including a classic AIP double-feature of Yog, Monster from Space (aka Space Amoeba, its current DVD release title) and The Return of Count Yorga at the Paramount in Barre (I've since tracked down the video/DVD releases of both and sent copies to George so he could savor a little blast from the past.)

George still runs the family dairy farm in Waterbury Center, and somehow juggles that daily workload with raising his son Henry, an active life performing on stage and onscreen (yep, an acting career!), and everything else he does in and around the state.

This past Saturday, Marge and I had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing George's current stage show at the Randolph, VT Chandler Center for the Arts and Music Hall. It was the concluding event in Randolph’s first annual Fiddlehead Festival, and though we missed the rest of the town’s grand to-dos, we sure enjoyed the show.

George’s partner Gerianne Smart made sure we had choice seats, and it was a grand time -- as in Grand Ol' Opry, which George semi-annually honors with his own venerable Ground Hog Opry music & comedy stage show -- peppered with George's songs, guitar picking, comedy routines (two incorporating volunteers from the audience) and all-around fun. George's stage presence is infectious: his warm generosity of spirit, his sense of play (and fair play), his extraordinary musical skills, his jokes win over one and all. Well, maybe not all his jokes, but most of 'em. Almost three hours flew by in no time at all, and the audience stood on its feet and cheered until rewarded with one more song, one more joke.

I was overjoyed that George and Gerianne included some of George's own filmmaking ventures in the lineup, too -- his two short films (Johnny, Get the Christmas Tree! and Whatever Happened to Baby... Bear?), shot around 1998-99 during George’s film student studies at Burlington College and edited years later (2004, I think), and the current, expansive preview trailor to George’s (and Gerianne’s) first feature, The Summer of Walter Hacks.

The audience responded favorably to all three, though it was interesting to overhear, en route to our car after the show, a conversation between two elder audience members likewise making their way to their parked vehicle. One wondered aloud whether the Walter Hacks preview was mocking the conventions of 1950s films (the trailor uses that era’s style of preview -- dialogue clips accompanied by shadowed titles ballyhooing the film’s story content and high emotions (“The story of a boy... his horse [as he mounts his bicycle]... and his sidekick [as the preteen female lead’s face graces the screen]...”), integrated by a lush orchestral score -- and expressing her dismay if that were the case. I was tempted to interrupt them and say, “George is dead serious -- he loves those films, and Walter Hacks is a completely earnest film,” but that warn’t my place. Hopefully, they’ll brave seeing the film themselves.

There isn’t an iota of 21st Century cynicism or requisite irony in George as a person, or in his and Gerianne’s film: what Marge and I have seen thus far (George has shown us, over the past few months, about an hour or more of rough edit and refined sequences) has been marvelous. If anything, the film may end up a bit of an aberration for its honesty and integrity, it’s utter lack of irony -- what will 2008 audiences make of such an earnest drama?

Henry Woodard -- age 11-12 -- as Walter Hacks

The Summer of Walter Hacks is shaping up to be an excellent coming-of-age tale; set in 1952, the film chronicles the life-altering transition in young Walter’s life when he loses his father, he and his older brother try to keep the farm going, and Walter learns how treacherous the adult world can truly be. What begins by and large as an idyllic barnyard-set meditation on a child’s rich imaginative life edges into sobering collision with what it is to be cast adrift too young, to be left to one’s own devices, in keeping one’s moral compass in an adult world corrupted by and capable of calculated manipulation, trickery and deceit. Though the film is lovingly grounded in Walter’s (and George’s) affection for westerns -- Walter plays ‘cowboy’ through much of the film, which like most childhood fantasy lives acts as his escape, his filter, his shield and his means of confronting the darker aspects of real life -- what we’ve seen is ultimately closer in spirit to darker films of the ‘50s and early ‘60s like Night of the Hunter and The Fool Killer. Yep, it's that good.


Walter Hacks is also a kindred film in its rich black-and-white imagery. George has been a lifelong student of cinema, clearly soaking up an abundance of knowledge as a viewer which is somewhat surprisingly blossoming on screen -- George has evolved a keen grasp and expressive palette of the nuances of black-and-white composition, light-play and editing technique. Aiding George in this capacity is Vermont’s own Michael Fisher (who I’ll be interviewing for this blog soon enough), bringing his considerable visual and cinematic skills and knowledge to the production. Michael has a fantastic eye and knows how to get what he sees (and imagines) onto the screen with rare intensity, and he and George have forged a striking dynamic working together on this film, challenging one another and coaxing the best from each other. George has always been a natural storyteller, but The Summer of Walter Hacks is promising something truly extraordinary.

There's history here -- George's history, and that of Vermont filmmaking as a whole. It was in Randolph, VT that one-time teenage movie ingenue Marjory Wilson (she declined a marriage proposal from none other than William S. Hart, one of the first movie western stars -- and Marjory’s senior by many years) co-wrote, co-produced and directed two feature films between 1920 and 1921, The Offenders and Insinuation. The former she did not star in, and turned over to the financers (who reportedly released the film, tentatively and to little success, a couple of years later); Insinuation, however, was Marjory’s pride and joy. She starred in it as well as directed, incorporating all the regional talent within reach and opening the film in November of 1921 at -- the Chandler Music Hall. Wilson then personally roadshowed the feature around North America, appearing in person at most (if not all) venues; years later, she returned to Randolph for a repeat showing at the Chandler, with what might have been the only extant print of Insinuation. Alas, both films now seem irrevocably lost. Marjory herself abandoned her film career after Insinuation and became a renowned radio personality and popular author, focusing on speaking/writing about manners, etiquette and proper behavior in both media. Much of what I’ve uncovered about Insinuation comes from her own autobiography.

Just outside the Chandler Center for the Arts gallery space, the Chandler folks have framed and displayed photographs and a few choice regional clippings about Marjory and her films. I pointed them out to Marge and savored them during the intermission in George’s show, and couldn’t help but meditate as well on the rightness of George and Gerianne including George’s films in the evening’s program, 85 years later. Marjory Wilson would have no doubt approved.

You Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST 3000) fans may not know it, but you're already George Woodard fans. George's first lead role in a film was as the villainous J.K. Robertson of Rutland-based director David Giancola's debut feature, Time Chasers (originally titled Tangents, 1994), the first Edgewood Studios production of any scope -- and I could go on about Edgewood, but that's for another post, another time. Anyhoot, Time Chasers has been immortalized thanks to MST 3000's mercilessly ribbing of David's first sf opus, though it's also a solid example of resourceful low-budget filmmaking on its own modest terms. Judging from

the imdb.com board, it’s already shocked more than a few MST 3000 fans to see George pop up in unexpected places in other films!

Heck, George had already appeared in a key supporting role in Ethan Frome (1993), holding his own with Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette and Joan Allen -- heady company indeed, on screen and on the set, and quite a baptism of Puritan fire, but George brought quite conviction to his role as Ethan’s right-hand man, stoic and reserved as only a New Englander can be. George went on to appear in supporting roles in Anthony Hall’s Mud Season (1999, which starred Rusty DeWees) and Michael Burke’s devastating The Mudge Boy (2003), on TV and direct-to-video programs like Rescue 9-11, Unsolved Mysteries, and the children’s vid fave Road Construction Ahead. George stars in Nora Jacobson’s excellent pair of narrative features My Mother’s Early Lovers (1998) and Nothing Like Dreaming (2004), both of which offer outstanding evidence of the man’s real acting skills; highly recommended by this viewer, and among the best films to emerge from my home state.

If you want to sample George’s musical skills, check out the extras on the DVD for Disney/Buena Vista’s feel-good documentary America’s Heart and Soul (2004), in which George and friends perform one of his favorite tunes on the front yard of his farm and home, with its breathtaking view of the area. George figures prominently in the documentary, too, a ‘role’ -- himself -- he’s proud of in a film more attuned to George’s own world view than most of the narrative films he’s appeared in (though I personally find it cloying, largely for its relentless two-dimensional caricaturing of the fascinating people and personalities the film showcases -- but George loves it, so I won’t get into that any further).

All in all, George has racked up thirty years of farm and theatrical/film experience. He left Vermont for a stretch -- his family kept the farm going as he spent several years in Los Angeles honing his acting skills on stage and film -- until he was called back to Waterbury Center to take over the farm when his family no longer could. While farming, he's kept up his film and TV work and founded the Woodchuck Theatre Company, crafting numerous stage productions in northern and central Vermont. George has always loved community theater, and keeps that passion in practice -- he even played Dracula on stage! He and Gerianne co-founded Pasture Productions as an independent film offshoot of the Woodchuck Theatre Company, and Walter Hacks is the first fruit of that collaborative effort.


Walter Hacks producer and co-scripter Gerianne Smart is a real sweetie -- Marge and I love ya, Gerianne! -- and I’m happy whenever I get to see her and George in action. Gerianne was everywhere in the Chandler Saturday night, keeping the show running, the audience happy before the show (an audience composed in part of many friends from the area, including a row of some of George’s high school classmates), and it’s clear that Walter Hacks is a harmonious collaborative venture. Gerianne entered this collaboration with her own remarkable set of skills and lifelong passions -- she’s a full-time marketing, promotion and advertising professional who runs her company, Smart Communication, out of Ferrisburgh, on the other end of northern VT from where George's farm overlooks the mountains. She is also the advertising director for Vermont Life magazine, the state’s most venerable newsstand magazine. Gerianne’s passion for the stage and screen isn’t a recent one: she’s as much a veteran as George in that department, and if anything her credentials are more ‘respectable.' Gerianne is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts; she lived and worked in New York City, and in her words “performed in many productions off-off (off!) Broadway” while appearing in industrials and the 1980s soap opera Loving. Gerianne relocated to Vermont in ‘91; her ongoing efforts to continue performing on stage, in regional theater, led to her involvement with the restoration of the historic Vergennes Opera House -- she in fact became the restoration organization’s president, instrumental in the reopening of the stage after a quarter-century of non-activity and the subsequent revitalization of Vergennes itself.

I suspect (though I don’t know) that it was the Opera House that initially brought Gerianne and George together. Seeing Gerianne a couple of times now working a theater space, her contagious comfort with the entire theater setting, her skillful juggling of multiple tasks and needs (on and behind the stage as well as in the audience) while at all times working the floor and keeping everyone engaged and happy -- she’s a real people person -- I can imagine what it was that might have brought them together. In time, while helping George with the daily barn chores, it was Gerianne who galvanized George’s desire to make his own feature film -- he’d always wanted to, but it took their chemistry to get it in motion.

Together, amid the daily milking chores, they began jotting down the fragmentary story and sequence concepts George had floating around in his skull on -- udder wipes. If there’s a more classic origin to any Vermont film in the state’s long cinematic history, I’ve yet to hear it!

While George’s young son Henry delivers (in the edited sequences we’ve seen) a solid and engaging performance as Walter -- Henry inhabits the role without guile or pretension, he is Walter more than he plays Walter, if you know what I mean -- the onscreen performer here who captures the eye and heart is Francesca Blanchard, playing Walter’s classmate and ‘sidekick’ Margaret. Francesca is a natural, the camera loves her, and she brings real charisma and energy to her role. Her comfort with performing isn’t illusory: she began performing (vocal recitals in France) at age ten, continued working onstage shortly after she and her mother Jennifer (who plays Ada, the local diner proprietor and Margaret’s mother, in Walter Hacks) moved to Vermont in 2002 -- playing Gladys in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Scout in the Vermont Stage Company’s production of To Kill a Mockingbird, Jack in A Child's Christmas in Wales, and Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker -- all before age 12 -- and (inevitably?) starred as Annie in her Middle School’s production. Francesca has also appeared in a couple of short films, but Walter Hacks is her big-screen feature debut, and she effortlessly holds the screen every time she appears.


Needless to say, Marge and I are eager to see more of George and Gerianne’s movie, as it comes together. I convinced George and Gerianne to take part in last week’s WRIF (White River Indie Film) festival panel of Vermont and New Hampshire filmmakers, where they debuted the Summer of Walter Hacks preview trailor.

This is a primo year for regional filmmaking hereabouts -- George and Gerianne's film is just one of the many features currently in production and post-production in VT, and a more diverse, eclectic and creative spread of films has yet to exist in my home state! -- and I’ll share more on this and many other films and filmmakers here as time permits.

I also have to mention that Marge and I ran into one of George’s and my favorite Harwood Union High School teachers in the audience in Randolph, too.

Carol Collins taught Creative Writing at Harwood, and it was she who really fanned the flames of my pre-teen love for writing into a passion that continues to this day -- to this blog!

So, if you enjoy reading this daily blather, or anything else I've written or had a hand in over the decades, let’s hear it for Carol! I owe much of it to her encouragement, teaching, patience ("Lordy!" she used to exclaim when confronted with one of my juvenile horror opuses during my Lovecraft reading phase of life -- the word 'ichor' was a real favorite of mine that drove Carol bonkers) and tolerance.

It was terrific to see her after all these years, to shake hands and chat again with her husband Fred (among the finest men on Planet Earth, in my estimation), and to meet Carol’s brother, who was also enjoying the show.

Carol and Fred still run an active business on Route 100 in northern Vermont, just about across from Harwood Union High School, and Carol's site is worth a visit, too, especially if you're (like Carol) into all things wool and woolly.

If you see this stand (built by Fred, a master carpenter and builder-of-all-things-good) out on Route 100 between the drive from Waitsfield to Duxbury, or vice-versa, pull on in -- it means Carol's open for business, and please tell Carol and Fred that I sent you!

Hey, I gotta go.

I’ve got a nearby mountain to climb with Peter and our CCS students -- those who dare to come!

See you all tomorrow, no doubt a bit wearier and bone-sore from the hike. It’s been a long time since I climbed up a mountain... but, hey, if George can make music and movies while running an active farm, I can climb a damned ol’ mountain.

For that matter, you can, too.

Have a great Wednesday, one and all!

Yakkadee Yak Yak:
Tuesday Tales

As our benevolent government again sends its most effective, truthful and tinged-with-the-grace-of-humility-and-fair-play diplomats abroad to solve all that is wrong in the Middle East,

I prefer to direct you to

The Indy Spinner Rack, where they have just posted their Center for Cartoon Studies program -- your Bissette 'lecture' for today, in spades!

Have a great Tuesday.

Shiny Beasts is Here!

Alan Moore Fans, Take Heed --

Well, we did it -- Rick Veitch, Alan Moore and I signed the same pieces of paper for the first time since 1999.

The earth did not shift, the sky did not fall, all went well.

But fair warning and high-alert to Alan Moore fans: this is likely to be your one and only chance, ever, to get all three signatures in one book, in one place.

You snooze, you lose. Jump on this opportunity.

To celebrate the release of Rick Veitch's latest trade paperback collection Shiny Beasts, Panel to Panel.net offers a once-in-a-lifetime, exclusive tipped-in bookplate signed by Rick Veitch, along with collaborators Alan Moore and Stephen R. Bissette.

As I've already boasted on this very blog, this new King Hell collection of primo past Rick Veitch treasures features one of Rick's and my key collaborative efforts, "Monkey See," from Epic #2. It's a story I'm still extremely proud of, and hope you'll enjoy. Shiny Beasts also features the one-and-only Epic story Alan Moore ever scripted, "Love Doesn't Last Forever," which also sports a graphic interstellar VD diseased panel ghosted by yours truly (making it yet another Moore/Veitch/Bissette collaborative effort from our personal 'golden age').

Like "Monkey See," "Love Doesn't Last Forever" has been out of print and hence out of reach for most avid Moore fans for almost a quarter-century, and it's well worth picking up the entire collection for this single jewel alone.

But Moore fans will want to jump on this singular signed bookplate most of all. It's no secret that (a) Alan has ceased attending any comics conventions or any US event whatsoever since the late 1980s, and (b) Alan chooses not to have any relations with yours truly, making a joint signing venture ever again in this lifetime highly unlikely (the last publicly-available signing was for Tim Underwood's hardcover limited edition of Stanley Wiater's and my own Comic Book Rebels, almost 15 years ago -- long out of print and out of circulation; FYI, the last co-signing of the three of us was for the contract necessary to the somber 1999 division of the '1963' characters and concepts as a legally-shared property).

Thus, PaneltoPanel is offering something exquisitely singular and rare here -- and quantities are extremely limited (there's only about 80 signature plates), so really, don't wait a moment to order. This may be your only window of opportunity.

Of course, all of this is gravy, really. Shiny Beasts is a collection well worth owning in any case, offering a one-stop overview of all of Rick Veitch's color comics work prior to his leap into the graphic novel form with the serialized Epic sf-adventure epic Abraxas and the Earthman (also recently collected by King Hell in a single volume, and essential reading). Actually, the Shiny Beasts body of work is sandwiched between Rick's first two graphic novels -- our collaborative effort on the Heavy Metal/Simon & Schuster movie adaptation graphic novel 1941: The Illustrated Story (1979) and Rick's Abraxas and the Earthman -- Rick really is one of the unsung pioneers of the graphic novel form, plunging into the expansive format a mere year or two after Will Eisner codified it with the pioneer A Contract With God (1977/78).

But what the hell, hardsell internet commerce sometimes requires further sweetening of the proverbial pot. All right, potheads, if you need any further coaxing --

order now, and receive free shipping on any other trade paperback collection from Rick Veitch's King Hell Press (here's the list, via this link).

So c'mon, what are you waiting for?

Don't forget to check out PaneltoPanel's other great exclusive bookplates, here; there's some great cartoonists, graphic novels, and rare signatures and bookplates to be found here!

Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, Rob Walton's Ragmop (among my favorite graphic novels of all time, pictured at left -- and one of the precious few graphic novels that's also hilarious), Michael Zulli's TMNT: Soul's Winter, Mark Martin's Runaway Comics (and the ultra-rare Runaway Comics 2.1), Bob Fingerman's delightful kids'n'zombies opus Recess Pieces, Gene Colan (!!!) signed bookplate for the Doctor Strange vs. Dracula collection, two volumes of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more Rick Veitch -- Abraxas and the Earthman and Rick's masterpiece Can't Get No -- are among the choice books and bookplates still available (others are sold out -- so don't miss out on your personal fave while it's in reach).

Now, I get nothing from all this; PaneltoPanel proprietor John Rovnak is indeed an old friend, and former owner of the late, great defunct comic shop Comics Route (the best comic shop Vermont ever had). But I love the fact that John is so engaged with promoting such quality work, and ceaselessly promoting the artists and creators whose work he loves. That's something worth supporting across the board. If we can't get more John Rovnaks in this world, let's all support the John Rovnak we've got -- and if this signature event is what initiates your making PaneltoPanel a primary online source for your comics, so be it.

But most of all, this fine Monday morning, it's important to alert those of you who are mutual fans of Alan, Rick and I to this singular opportunity to snag Shiny Beasts with this rare signed bookplate -- an artifact of happier times, for some comics fans and readers -- and to do so now.

Have a great Monday morning, one and all -- it's a beaut of a morning here in Windsor, VT, and I'm eager to get on with my day.

Hey, dig the new blog title -- more evidence of Cat's handiwork, and the changes a'comin' in -- all of which is good!

Dig the wacky ongoing search for a 'war czar' -- of course, the headline for Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann says it all: "Help wanted: War czar with clear vision..."

Anyone qualified and with 'clear vision' has either been fired, bullied, abused, ignored, or has 'clear' enough 'vision' to steer clear of this completely bonkers President, Administration and these wars.

And what's with this 'czar' shit?

I reckon adopting venerable Stalinist and KGB tactics has at last infiltrated & corrupted every niche of the White House think-tanks at last. Hell, we've had Karl Rovesputin at work since the beginning, so why not?

More later today -- have a great Sunday in the meantime...

The Site is Up!
Well, upright --

Kudos to Cat! The website -- in its fetal form -- is up!

Well, the home page is, in any case,

and we'll be packing every nook and cranny with content -- memories, reveries, art, photos, diatribes, screeds, homages, eulogies, threnodies and melodies -- in the coming weeks. Thanks, Cat, and bless you!


Cat's been raring to go all week; alas, it's been my busy schedule keeping me away from the process. CCS duties (especially in our final weeks of this crucial semester), speaking gigs (yesterday I was in Fairlee, VT, speaking at a gathering of VT librarians at the opulent Lake Morey Inn, on the shores of Lake Morey) and family obligations (Happy Birthday to Maia -- and we'll seeing Danny for breakfast in a couple of hours) have kept me away, but thankfully the Cat will play with or without me -- hence, the site home page, up and running.

I'll be at it with Cat this week and every week hereafter, though, so keep an eye on the site daily. After CCS graduation (May 19th), we'll really be arming for bear, so look for big advances and changes later this month. Soon, this blog will be the appendage, rather than the focal point. Still, I'll keep it fresh and as daily as I can!

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A reminder, too, as we move into spring proper and early warm weather travel for some of you, that my booth is up and running at the Vermont Antique Mall in Route 4's easy-access Quechee Gorge Village. This is my retail venue, and I'm working hard to ensure it's also a venue for Center for Cartoon Studies students -- if you're curious about what the artists at CCS are up to, this booth will provide an ongoing retail space for their work.

As of yesterday, I've placed well over 200 items in the booth, jam-packed now with CCS mini-comics (all $ go to the students who made 'em), Bissette collectibles, rare DVDs and videos, tons of comics (including 'bricks' of 1980s and '90s comics bargain priced), books, curios, doodads, movie promo rarities, and much, much more (including one of Marge's needlepoint creations).

In fact, CCS artist (and soon to be pioneer class graduate) Colleen Frakes has already upped the ante by offering her mini-comic for sale with a panel of original art in every bagged copy!

(If you can't make it to the booth in person, contact Colleen directly through her site and mail-order your mini-comic-with-original-art now, while they're still available -- don't dawdle, now, as quantities are limited, and tell Colleen I sent ya, please!)

All these goodies are signed by their respective creators, and there's even handy, fairly-priced (a bargain for you, but still earns for the creators) pre-packs and 'bag o' comics' collecting multiple issues and collectibles together. I'm doing all I can to make this booth a one-stop-shop delight for anyone into sampling the works of CCS artists -- and my own humble efforts, of course.

Here's the link to the Vermont Antique Mall venue at Quechee Gorge Village, including directions, hours, and so on.

I'm dealer #653 -- ask at the front desk, they'll happily take you there! -- and Marge and I will be posting photos of the booth and pix of my line of painted ceramic originals, which will be available exclusively at the booth.

More on this -- including links, pix, and more -- later this weekend.

PS: The first Quechee Gorge Village outdoor flea market is this Sunday, starting at 7 AM -- get there early if you want to beat me to the best deals, bunky!

__________________

Now that I'm no longer actively able to preorder my DVDs via my old video store source, I'm scrounging around for info and venues like everyone else. Among the most eagerly awaited of the upcoming summer crop of DVDs for this avid omnivore is

the upcoming Media Blasters "Tokyo Shock" release of Ishiro (aka 'Inoshiro') Honda's Frankenstein Conquers the World/Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijû Baragon (1965) -- here's the link to Tim Lucas's Video Watchblog post on this divine visitation (as a two-disc set, no less!).

All of which reminds me I've been meaning to ask the help of the gathered Myrant readership in an ongoing search of an issue of Esquire magazine from my youth.

I'm guessing the issue I seek came out sometime between 1971 and 1973, though I could be wrong; I'm pretty sure I picked it up while still in high school (I graduated in '73). I've scoured the Esquire website -- which does not list issue contents, sadly -- and vainly searched Esquire covers in hopes of recognizing the cover for the issue I seek, but no memory bells have as yet rung, and I've peeked at every single cover from 1966 to 1976.

The Esquire in question was an issue with an odd short, illustrated article on 'Good/Bad Monster Movies,' prominently featuring Frankenstein Conquers the World and The Beast of Hollow Mountain in that lineup, both with full-page pix. If memory serves, each film enjoyed a single-page writeup and one large black-and-white photo image, and it was a short piece -- no more than six pages, as I recall. Still, the author clearly loved the films, and it was an early landmark in the fusion of the broader pop culture with the rarified realm of the monster magazines. It was also a key work (by my reading experience, anyway) in the gradual elevation of what the mainstream had habitually dismissed as 'bad movies' into the strange, privileged status of sought-after treasure -- a tentative bridge between Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp" and her essay on science-fiction disaster films and the Medved Brothers's books on "turkeys" (the tomes that elevated Ed Wood to posthumous star stature as the patron saint of 'bad movies').

That the Esquire article chose Frankenstein Conquers the World was, at the time, a fascinating turn of events; after all, even Joe Dante Jr.'s review of the film in Castle of Frankenstein's "Movieguide" (a fixture of what was definitely the most intelligent and adult of all '60s newsstand monster zines) had villified the film, and even Forrest J. Ackerman had apologized in the letter pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland for running a cover photo-feature on the film (with an eye-popping beaut of a Ron Cobb cover painting!). At the time Esquire ran the piece, the only extant 'movie guides' with capsule reviews (beyond TV Guide's blurbs -- many written by Bhob Stewart, another CoF vet -- and regional TV schedule publications) were the Steven Scheuer Movies on TV paperbacks, which by and large dismissed any and all genre fare, and, for the diehards, the ongoing serialized "Frankenstein TV Movieguide" in Castle of Frankenstein. All of these reviled the 1960s Toho sf and monster films; even CoF despaired of the Toho formula after Ghidrah, The Three-Headed Monster initiated the 'monster rally' formula so beloved today.

This Esquire article also predated Take One magazine's affectionate article on the Godzilla films, and hence stands as perhaps the first mainstream acknowledgement of the subversive charge of the Toho daikaigu-eiga. Thankfully, Greg Shoemaker of Ohio was already publishing his fanzine Japanese Fantasy Film Journal (alas, I gave my set away back in the mid-70s during a move, though I kept one fateful issue -- Greg published my first fan art in JFFJ), so we diehard Toho fans were beginning to recognize one another and our mutual love for films like Frankenstein Conquers the World, but there weren't many of us, and there were certainly no mainstream venues for such sentiments -- other than this elusive Esquire aberration, which I need to track down, and soon.

So -- can anyone help me locate that issue of Esquire? I'd welcome guidance, suggestions, links, photocopies, or anything, really, at this stage. Thanks!

_______________________

As if you needed more proof that zombies are truly 'in' --

As of this week, Google's 'Blogger Buzz' intro page (where we bloggers all sign in) has opened with the following:

Old Blogger is dead! Long live Blogger!

Today at Blogger HQ we accomplished one of our most significant milestones ever: we changed old Blogger’s monitoring from “page us when it goes down” to “page us if it comes back to life in a horrifying, zombie state.”

Now, "a horrifying, zombie state" is a curious enough turn of phrase, but it's also an active link

to this Jonathan Coulton music video by Adobe Program Manager Mike Spiff Booth, which is a pretty strong push from Google for a specific vid, don't you think?

I'm happy for Jonathan Coulton and all the attention his song "re: Your Brains" is thus earning -- hmmm, how do the rest of us schlubs land a Google push? "Jonathan makes his songs available online

(www.jonathancoulton.com)

via the Creative Commons license, which enables projects such as this video. He has a podcast called Thing A Week where he puts out a song a week to keep his creative juices flowing. He's said he's going to keep it up until someone pays him to do it for real." Alan Moore fans take note: "The song at the end of the video is "Mandelbrot Set", another great Jonathan Coulton song."

And that's all the plugging Jonathan gets from me for now. He's got Google on his side, and needs no other.

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I'm outta here -- have a great Saturday, one and all!

You May Have Survived This...

... But Can Any of Us Survive THIS???

What, Me Worry? Bush Dances the Wars Away;
And: Old Web Links Never Die...(They Just Turn Into Different, Glitzier New Links)

This was good news to wake up to;

I hope the Democrats hold this Administration's feet to the fire until our President learns what "compromise" and "negotiation" mean. He clearly has no idea; did you catch his reaction to a question about the possibility of Condi Rice inadvertently meeting the ignored-for-six-years Iranian ambassador? What are these people, arrogant self-centered pathological morons? Oh, ya. How could I have thought otherwise?

Cleaning up old emails I've saved for their invaluable links, I find that -- old links never die, they just turn into useless, no-longer-relevant links.

For instance, this grand email about

the origins of Alfred E. Neuman

-- and note that link has links that no longer lead anywhere -- was brimming with info on old Alfred's pre-Mad existence. Here's the text I saved, compliments of Miron Mercury sharing a 2005 email from his friend John (last name unknown), still invaluable though the links are now dead:

Subject: RE : Quest For Neuman

How did Alfred E. Neuman's mysterious iconic image become identified with painless dentistry? "It Didn't Hurt A Bit," say the old ads. One thing; his image was reproduced almost daily in Manitoba in two newspapers from at least 1909 to 1936 and was a familiar figure to a whole population of central Canadians. Cartoonists noticed him and possibly columnists took notice as well.

Manitoba Free Press, 1928
http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?action=show&ident=728813

Winnipeg Tribune, 1909
http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?action=show&ident=728816

Children's Day. 1909: Grue, Winnipeg Tribune ;
http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?action=show&ident=728818

Old Swimmin' Hole. 1909: Grue, Winnipeg Tribune ;
http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?action=show&ident=728823

Curiosity led me to think that perhaps he had come from one of the early travelling medicine shows, perhaps as a label on the bottles of patented painkiller. I recalled reading an article years ago in the Weekend magazine, sent all over Canada with the comic sections. I looked it up.

I don't claim this is the true story of Alfred E., merely a possible version, my version.

The King of Canadian medicine men was Thomas Patrick "Doc" Kelley (1865-1931), who, starting in 1886, travelled Canada and the U.S. selling patent medicine like East India Tiger Fat and Passion Flower tablets. He was so well known that druggists in Toronto and Winnipeg stocked his wares in their drugstores. His favored stomping grounds were Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. Other medicine shows traveled the circuit, including the Kickapoo company, but they never seemed to make it outside of Toronto.

Amongst the banjo players, wrassling bears &c., the most popular member of Kelley's troupe was a comedian, Jock McCulla, born in Scotland, whose pratfalls and slapstick, often of a very painful-looking nature, made him one of the most popular comedians in North America, pre-movies and vaudeville. I can imagine him saying after a particularly nasty fall, "It didn't hurt a bit," followed by sales of bottles of some type of pain-killer, stocked by drugstores all along the route for boys with teeth knocked out by hockey puck or baseball.

He bore an uncanny resemblance to Alfred E., with carrot-top hair and a gap-toothed grin… well, judge for yourselves… here's Jock McCulla in the flesh, possible forerunner of the What-me-worry kid, sometime between 1890 and 1896:

http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?action=show&ident=728829

John.

Another unpaid debt American pop culture owes to Canada!

Clearly 'imagehosting.us' has changed hands and no longer hosts Canadian images (nyuk nyuk). Too bad the old links don't work -- still, glad I held on to this email (thanks, Miron), and if Cat and I can figure out how to post the email with images I saved, we'll do so pronto. What staggers my Luddite pea-brain is usually child's play to Cat.

I'm glad, though, I've held on to other old emails with once-treasured links. Some I couldn't access before our move to Windsor and high-speed internet access this past January; so, I may not be able to access the original link's intent, but have found treasures nonetheless once I've explored their new destination points.

For instance, this link John Totleben sent me ages ago to an Alan Moore/Brian Eno interview no longer links to that (nor is the program even available or archived any longer, as far as I can see), but this has turned into one of my fave listening links for everything else it provides from BBC Radio 4.

Thankfully, though, some two-and-three-year-old links still go right where they were originally intended to go, and still delight.

Check out this 17th Century sculpture gem Rick Veitch sent me back in January of 2006, and enjoy.

Finally, this is a great & grand Friday because Tim Lucas solved the mystery of who John Austin Frazier really was.

I saw this preview trailor for the Europix Orgy of the Living Dead triple-bill over thirty years ago, and have wondered who John Austin Frazier may have really been all this time. I knew he wasn't really in a mental asylum, and I sure as shit knew not a single one of the films in the triple-bill had put him there, having caught that triple-feature twice myself.

Hey, look, I'm fine. What, Me Worry?

Anyhoot, go visit Tim's Bava book blog and read all about it.

And then you have a great & grand Friday yourself.

Dance them wars away...

I held back posting this photo on May 1 -- everyone knew. If you didn't, you're sound asleep. Sleep on.

Mission is Not Accomplished, of course. And I'm not just referring to the Iraq War, or the war in Afghanistan, or the War on Terror. What the present architects of our nation have brought upon us -- whether intentionally or not simply no longer matters -- is the End of the Empire. We have seen the clear signs -- Hurricane Katrina is still the most devastating and visible landmark, though most continue to ignore it, just as we're right this moment ignoring the silent, invisible, inexplicable devastation of the honeybee hives presently underway. We are amid the process; we can ignore or deny it, but it is happening. The May 1st photo is a mere moment in that process, but a vital one nonetheless.

I put it to you that what we are amid is nothing less than the eve of the collapse of the Empire -- a major change in US history, unprecedented and certainly unlike anything the present generation has experienced or even entertained, outside of dystopian sf.

An essay well worth reading (thanks to Jean-Marc for steering this link our way):

"Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for peak oil than the US" by Dmitry Orlov

"My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the "Collapse Gap" – to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War..."

Get ready, folks.
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Still, teaching must go on. We must draw. Yesterday's CCS Drawing Workshop was a two-part affair, building on last week's two-part session: last week, we were visited by botanical illustrators

Bobbi Angell

and Susan Riley, both making the old drive from Marlboro to White River Junction, VT, a drive I know well. Bobbi and Susan presented a two-hour workshop on observational drawing of plant life, which most of the freshmen jumped into with enthusiasm, though it'll take time to build the observational skills essential to the task(s). Bobbi and Susan were terrific.

After that, we spent 90 minutes or so constructing a cardboard city -- a miniature, but for that fairly expansive: about 10' x 9' x 3', with a faux mountain overlooking the village like something out of a Guy Maddin film.

For yesterday's session, both were followed up with:

DRAWING WORKSHOP -- May 2nd -- PART ONE
(1 PM - 2:45 PM)
BRING ALL DRAWING SUPPLIES YOU NEED for OUTDOORS DRAWING

Building on last week’s session with BOBBI ANGELL and SUSAN RILEY, we are spending the first part of today’s session DRAWING OUTDOORS. I have lots of WOODS behind my house -- it’s all yours to draw in until 2:35 PM!

THEN -- leave Bissette house at 2:45 PM, reconvene at the VERIZON BLDG., DOWNSTAIRS at 3 PM for PART TWO of DRAWING WORKSHOP.
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EXERCISE TWO, May 3, 2007 - Drawing Workshop!

Composite Cityscapes

This is a two-step process of drawing an imaginary cityscape from a constructed miniature -- our cardboard city -- and then customizing your drawings referencing from the real buildings, streets and sidewalks of White River Junction. You should end up with three drawings, completed in either pencil or ink, depending on your preference. These should be tight drawings, suitable for use in a comic, as illustration, or as tight reference.

1. ROUGH OUT no less than THREE city areas from any view -- and please, choose three different observation points (from above, from street level, etc.) -- modeled from the constructed miniature.

Be sure to use lighting to rough in the forms of the structures and a cohesive light source; we have enough lights for each group to create its own light source, or move them as needed once one group is done.

These roughs should have no surface details -- no windows, doors, signage, fire escapes, etc. -- beyond what the constructed reference provides.

Be inventive, be imaginative -- this doesn’t need to be a ‘realistic’ contemporary city, as much as an environment that looks ‘lived in’ and seems believably three-dimensional in construction. Perspective can be roughed out -- this is not an exercise in perspective per se.

2. The three roughs will now be ‘fleshed out’ and COMPLETED from LIFE REFERENCE in and around our White River Junction neighborhood.

Open your eyes, and complete your miniature-referenced buildings, streets, etc. with the details of LIFE. Add building textures (wood, brick, stone, glass), add attached structures (fire escapes, building signs -- including those painted ON buildings -- canopies, etc.), doors, windows, sidewalks etc. to create three fully detailed, rendered city scenes.
__________________

I followed up with a short talk, which essentially said the following:

Building on today's Part Two session, though this was a tight exercise timewise, the principle is simple:

If you need to create a convincing urban scene, however small the town (e.g., White River Junction) or metropolitan the city (e.g., Tokyo, New York, Chicago, etc.), create a simple miniature for yourself using cardboard or board -- just to create the building forms, which you can then light for shadows -- then 'wrap' a more realistic or representationally convincing detailed street scene around those forms.

Photo reference is invaluable in this process --

check out a standard Google search for city street scenes

and extend the exercise in your sketchbook to fully grasp the principle -- pick a city to reference, and turn your original cardboard city roughs into an imagined street from a specific city.

This, after all, is what theatre set designers, special effects creators, miniature experts (still used for movie special effects, amusement park rides using '3-D' holographic imagery, like the Universal City Back to the Future ride, or for CGI creations for films, games, etc.), and many artists do.

In comics, this is the kind of thing Gerhard used to do for Cerebus, Herge for Tintin, Richard Corben for his comix and comics stories, etc. -- construct models (usually out of matte board or a similar stiff, cutable board) of specific settings, interiors and exteriors, and use them for reference in creating their drawn panels and pages. I used to visit Dave Sim and Gerhard in their Kitchener, Ontario, studio, and Gerhard occasionally constructed very detailed miniature reference 'sets' for portions of Cerebus -- especially if it was an interior set (like Rick's Tavern) or exterior that would be in play for an extended portion of the narrative.

I know this seemed a 'play' session, last week and this, but don't underestimate the value of the lesson, and the principle. It may serve you well in the future!
________________

OK, off to work. I have a heady morning with the seniors, and a relaxing afternoon savoring two back-to-back sessions with Ivan Brunetti teaching.

Ah... until the Empire collapses, we will draw. After the Empire collapses, we will still draw. We may eat dirt, but we will use our spit to draw with it. It's what we do.

Have a great Thursday.

Bryan Talbot:
Illuminating Underground Roots

A Swamp Thing factoid known to almost all British fans of the series but almost no US fans is that Chester Williams, the benevolent, likeable hippie character Alan Moore introduced to Swamp Thing, was a nod to Bryan Talbot’s most popular 1970s UK underground character, Chester P. Hackenbush. Bryan and I will get into that matter (and the life and legacy of his Chester) in a future interview, but it seemed appropo to use the blog interview format to introduce those of you unfamiliar with Bryan’s pioneering early work and the British underground scene of the ‘70s to both.

I caught Bryan just before he began his April tour of Europe and the US, and we completed this, the third in a series of interviews we’re doing together (the first two were completed for PaneltoPanel.net; see link, below). This intro will serve to introduce all our subsequent interviews, so read on, please, and meet (as best as my own blog can provide a meeting ground) Bryan Talbot.


Spawned -- uh, born February 24th, 1952 in Wigan, Lancashire in England, Bryan Talbot is among his native country’s and the world’s premiere graphic novelists. Bryan in fact created the UK’s first modern graphic novel, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (launched 1978, first collected into a single volume by Never Ltd. in 1982), an immediate contemporary of Raymond Briggs's celebrated When the Wind Blows.





But that was, in many ways, just a beginning (but not the beginning, as this interview will reveal to those of you who don't know otherwise).

Among Talbot’s other key and notable works are his comic strips (for Manchester Flash, Wired, Vogarth, Imagine, Knockabout, etc.) and contributions to 2000 AD (beginning in 1983, and including artwork for Judge Dredd, Nemesis the Warlock, etc.), Hellblazer, Sandman, Fables, the two-part “Mask” for the Batman series Legends of the Dark Knight, and many others. He collaborated with famed vet American underground comics author and poet Tom Veitch on The Nazz, and with Tom’s younger brother Rick Veitch on the first six issues of Teknophage, from a concept by Neil Gaiman; assuming the writing chores on his next Teknophage collaborative venture, Talbot scripted the six-issue miniseries Phage: Shadowdeath. Talbot’s ‘breakthrough’ graphic novel (for the US market, in any case) was the now-classic The Tale of One Bad Rat (1995), followed by his Luther Arkwright sequel Heart of Empire (1999, which also spawned a CD-Rom created by Talbot and his website maestro James Robertson, released the same year).

His most recent graphic novel is the marvelous Alice in Sunderland (2007), which

Bryan and I talked about at PaneltoPanel.net,

where you can also purchase Alice in Sunderland with an exclusive signed, limited edition bookplate (our second interview, on Bryan’s new book The Naked Artist, will be posted soon).

And that’s just the man’s comics work: Talbot has also illustrated and created covers for numerous comics, books and magazines, worked in advertising, created designs for British Aerospace, collaborated (with sf author Bob Shaw) on “Encounter with a Madman” for Granada TV’s anthology program Celebration (1981), produced concept art for the TV movie Above the World (based on a Ramsey Campbell story, 1994), and oh, so much more.

But it all begins somewhere.

It began for Bryan with an illustration in the Tolkien Society magazine (1969), a weekly comic strip (created with fellow UK cartoonist Bonk) for his college newspaper, and -- most vital of all -- with the British underground comix.

Just as a key component of the American underground comix of the ‘60s and early ‘70s emerged from the countercultural underground newspapers of the day, the British underground comix had their own roots in British underground papers like Oz and International Times (aka IT). Like their American counterparts, these were often rag-tag affairs brimming with radical political screeds, poetry, articles, photo collage, art and comics. The first British underground comic tabloid to emerge from this scene was Cyclops (four issues, 1970), founded by members of the IT staff helmed by Graham Keen, which reprinted choice cuts of the American comix and some new British work. The notorious Nasty Tales (1971-73) followed and was quickly squelched by the authorities and brought to trial; it, too, reprinted US comix along with new work by British cartoonists (Chris Welch, Edward Barker, Malcolm Livingstone). The same was true of the longest running of all British comix, the Cozmic Comics line, which was launched in 1972 (ostensibly as a life-support for Oz magazine) and lasted over twenty titles/issues, showcasing US comix alongside new work by Brian Bolland, Angus McKie, Dave Gibbons, Joe Petagno, Edward Barker, Mike Weller and others.

But even Cozmic Comics met its Waterloo, and by the mid-70s the scene seemed prematurely defunct -- until the arrival of Bryan Talbot and Brainstorm Comix (1975), the first British underground composed of entirely new and all-British creations -- the maturing work of one Bryan Talbot.

Brainstorm Comix was an unabashed psychedelic experience, published by Lee Harris, proprietor of the still-vital Portobello Road headshop Alchemy. Brainstorm Comix #1 also introduced the character of Chester P. Hackenbush -- and, with its third issue, Luther Arkwright, whose adventures proper were launched in Near Myths (reprinted -- in considerably revised and expanded form -- in Psssst! beginning in 1981). Bryan also serialized the adventures of one Frank Fazakerley, Space Ace Of The Future, in Ad Astra (1978) -- but we’re getting ahead of our story.

Let’s talk to Bryan about the underground comix scene overall, and we’ll get to Chester and Luther Arkwright next time around...

SB: When did the cartooning bug first bit you, Bryan?

BRYAN TALBOT: When I was around five years old and an uncle gave me some second-hand collections of the work of British newspaper cartoonist Giles. I couldn't understand the political jokes but I loved the drawings and the wealth of detail in them.

SB: What was your first published work -- and when, in your own mind, did something of yours see print that really had you thinking, "Now I'm on to something..."?

BT: I had a short prose story printed in the school annual when I was about fourteen. My first printed illustrations appeared in The British Tolkein Society magazine, when I was eighteen. I suppose that it was while working on my first underground comics a few years later that I realized that I could perhaps aspire to becoming a professional comic artist but I can't remember a specific moment of revelation.

SB: Between age 18 for you and your first underground creations, what did you do?

BT: A one-year foundation art course followed by a three-year graphic design course.

SB: The British underground scene is a rather murky period to Americans. I recall seeing my first UK undergrounds in a friend's collection, though precious few made it over here. What are you primary memories of how that scene started?

BT: The first UK undergrounds were, on the whole, very influenced by the American ones. In fact the two that lasted for more than an issue or two, Nasty Tales and Cozmic Comics, were filled with reprints of American strips. Both these comics were off-shoots of UK underground publications -- the International Times (IT) newspaper and Oz magazine, respectively. Towards the end of it's run (about eighteen issues) Cozmic Comics started to publish original British material by the likes of Chris Welch and Edward Barker.


SB: Would you care to chart the UK underground in terms of your own development and role therein?

BT: I came in on the tail end of UK undergrounds in 1975 with Brainstorm Comix #1. It had been about two years since the last Cozmic had appeared and the field was empty. Altogether, six issues were produced, mainly of my work but two were anthologies (including work by Hunt Emerson and Chris Welch). At about the same time, Hunt started producing low print run surrealist comics while he worked at the Birmingham Arts Lab. These got more ambitious over the next few years, increasing in size, circulation and contributors.

SB: The American underground expired, really, after the one-two punch of the 1973 Supreme Court Obscenity ruling and the outlawing of head shops, which quickly dismantled the distribution for comix. Arcade was the last, great gasp here. How did the UK underground scene evaporate?

BT: Head shops were never outlawed over here but Brainstorm was pretty well distributed anyway - even to news stands through the distribution company Moore Harness (which used to specialize in T&A mags). In 1978 I stopped doing undergrounds as such and began writing and drawing The Adventures of Luther Arkwright which was serialised in the independent "ground-level" adult SF comic magazine Near Myths. The Arts Lab's comics were never, strictly speaking, underground in that their subject matter wasn't the typical counter culture mix of sex, drugs and rock and roll that is usually associated with the genre. They, themselves, described their comics as "alternative" rather than underground. For example, they published the first UK feminist comic Heroine. They gradually stopped publishing comics at the end of the seventies, after Hunt Emerson left to go freelance. From the mid-seventies, Tony and Carol Bennett had been reprinting Gilbert Shelton's Freak Brothers and,in the early eighties, began Knockabout Comics and have since sporadically published underground and alternative comics and graphic novels, often by Hunt. By the way, my Brainstorm and other underground work was reprinted in one volume a few years ago by Alchemy, its original publisher, and is still in print.

SB: Two variations on the same question, Bryan, if you’ll indulge me. At the time, what was the single most influential British underground comic, story or creator within the scene? And, looking back, 20/20 hindsight, what would you consider today the single most influential comic, story or creator of the 1970s UK underground period?

BT: I don't think that I can really answer this as I think that the answer's Arkwright and myself! The UK underground scene was quite small compared to the US one. Both Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland started in the Brit underground but I can't really say that their work there was very influential. Whereas, Arkwright had many readers who went on to become comic pros who've affirmed the influence that Arkwright had on them, including Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis -- and even Rick Veitch, Michael Zulli -- and yourself! The 1980s Italian edition of Arkwright was also very influencial, I gather, influencing a generation of young Italian SF writers.

SB: That’s true, your Arkwright work was a real influence on me -- we’ll get into that later, promise, in the Arkwright interview!

So, there’s a sort of limbo between the demise of the underground and the rise of 2000 A.D. and what Americans experienced stateside as the British Invasion, if you will, of the late 1970s and early ‘80s. That began with the import and US collections of Judge Dredd, particularly Brian Bolland's tenure on that character, and John Bolton’s new Marvel work and, in 1983, Alan Moore’s taking over the scripting of Saga of the Swamp Thing. All we saw, here, on our own newsstands were works like So Beautiful, So Dangerous serialized in Heavy Metal; horror fans, like myself, also savored the monster magazines -- Bolton, David Lloyd, etc. in Halls of/House of Hammer, which got some US distribution, Dave Gibbons popping up in The Monster Times -- and attentive comics readers caught the eruption of Warrior, which is strictly an import here. We missed Action completely, mind you, and most missed the coming of 2000 A.D. until the Titan trade paperback collections were imported.

You remained active throughout this transitional period; there were the music zines, which few saw here, and you poured yourself into Luther Arkwright, which was at last collected in book form in 1981. Could you chat about this post-underground, pre-British Invasion period, Bryan? What was it like over there, as a creator and a reader? And what, specifically, was it like for you?

BT: I was actually making money for the first time! This is the period when I went professional. As well as working on Arkwright, I did a lot of illustration work -- airbrush paintings, rock star pinups etc, as well as the
weekly strip Scumworld in Sounds. It was a pretty exciting time. Pssst!, the experimental precursor of comic magazines such as Heartbreak Hotel, Escape and Deadline was coming out and we were all waiting for Warrior, which was a year or two in preparation and promised -- and delivered -- a lot. Meanwhile, 2000 A.D. was the cutting edge of the adventure comic. I started working for it myself in 1983.

SB: What would you consider your key works from this pre-Luther Arkwright, early career period for you?

BT: The "Chester P. Hackenbush" trilogy in Brainstorm, I suppose -- and Frank Fazakerly, Space Ace of the Future! -- a monthly one page SF spoof strip in Ad Astra magazine (the UK's answer to Omni).

SB: Thanks, Bryan, I really appreciate the time you’ve given us -- let’s chat again, and soon. Good luck and happy trails on your April tour!

Here, again, is the link to our previous interview at PaneltoPanel.net,

where you can also purchase Bryan’s new graphic novel Alice in Sunderland with an exclusive signed, limited edition bookplate;

here’s PaneltoPanel’s complete one-stop shopping selection of Talbot graphic novels currently available in the US. All are well worth owning and revisiting frequently.

Here’s Bryan’s own Alice in Sunderland site home page;

but that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

For more on Bryan’s life, times and comics, check out

James Robertson’s marvelous Official Bryan Talbot Fan Page, which is also your exclusive online source for Bryan and James’s Heart of Empire CD-ROM.

To tap into the remarkable, imaginative realms of Bryan’s seminal Luther Arkwright graphic novel(s), visit this site,

and Bryan’s Luther Arkwright web comic awaits you here.

Bryan selflessly adds,

“Check out this incredible graphic novel by Véronique Tanaka,” and so you should.

This is just the first in a series of upcoming interviews, with all kinds of folks I hope you'll find of interest: cartoonists, writers, filmmakers, jacks-of-all-trades, and many more. So -- more exclusive interviews with other folks in the coming weeks -- keep your eye on this blog, folks!

Have a great Wednesday...

Uzumaki; or, What I Must Do Before I Get to "Toos-day Afffffternnnoooooooooon, Toooos-day Afffterrnoooooooooooooon..."

(the above is to be sung, for all you Moody Blues fans.)

Today, monkey-boy Bissette begins his morning with a Center for Cartoon Studies graphic novel discussion, a now-venerable tradition instituted by the now-seniors and faculty Robyn Chapman. This is my first go at the process, which should go fine; I'll let you know if monkey-boy Bissette chi-chis out or spews chewed banana all over. Otherwise, this is likely all you'll hear about it from me for now, except to say I'm a huge fan of Junji Ito's horror manga and the complete (three volume) Uzumaki is among my favorite genre graphic novels -- right up there with From Hell and the innovative Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan/Tom Palmer Tomb of Dracula (graphic novel by proxy, founder of the form in the genre though it's a serialized periodical that became a graphic novel en route).

Monkey-boy Bissette prepped his Q&A sheet a couple of weeks ago, though monkey-boy had to borrow a copy of Uzumaki Vol. 1 from senior Caitlin Plovnick, since monkey-boy still has yet to unpack his manga because monkey-boy has too many manga and books and can't find his ass with a compass yet. Poor, poor monkey-boy; he owes Caitlin big-time.

Anyhoot, enough on monkey-boy, here's the scoop on the Uzumaki Q&A; see you tomorrow with livelier monkey-boy chatter! (PS: You'll have to go to amazon.com to 'look inside', though -- man, those used copies are dear now, aren't they?)

Study Guide for Uzumaki by Junji Ito
Discussion leader: Stephen R. Bissette
Discussion date: May 1

1. According to some, there are two kinds of fantasy: the marvelous, works set in wholly invented universes unconnected to our own reality and adhering to their own internal rules of logic, and the fantastique, in which the fantasy elements encroach, intrude upon (and in some cases transform) our known reality, either period or contemporary. Which genre would you place Uzumaki within, and does it function as horror rather than fantasy? If so, why? If not, why not?

2. Uzumaki is unique in that its central premise concerns a primal obsession with a geometric form -- the spiral -- and how this obsession impacts life in an isolated Japanese community. Can you think of any other works -- in comics, fiction, cinema or music -- concerned with primal obsessions with, and material manifestations of, a form or forms?

3. If you are familiar with either other horror manga (like Hino’s), or other horror manga by Junji Ito (Tomie, Museum of Horror, Gyo), how does his writing and art in Uzumaki work -- or not work -- for you? If you are not familiar with any of Ito’s other creations, or horror manga, what are your initial impressions of Ito’s work as a writer and as a cartoonist? What works for you? What doesn’t work for you?

4. Junji Ito’s horror manga are entirely set within contemporary Japan. How does Ito present life in the coastal village of Kurozu-cho, and the Kurozo High School? Did you find this setting convincing and evocative? If so, what worked? If not, what would you have needed changed (and are these changes reflective of differences between American and Japanese cultural norms)?

5. The teenage couple Kirie Goshima and her troubled boyfriend Shuichi Saito are the protagonists threading together the six chapters in this first (of three) volumes. How does Ito characterize them, and how is it different from how the victims of the spiral obsession(s) portrayed? Choose one chapter and discuss.

6. If you had to choose one key sequence in which the script and art worked in unison to create a powerful emotional effect, which would you choose and why?

7. There is a fine line in horror between the terrifying and the risible, the horrific and the humorous. Given the inherent absurdity of its premise, Uzumaki walks that tightrope throughout. Choose a sequence in which Ito “pushes the envelope” -- either in a way that was genuinely disturbing or horrific for you, or that became laughable. What works, what doesn’t work, and why?

8. The function of horror is in part to give shape to formless fears, to speak the unspeakable, to reveal the hidden. In Uzumaki, Ito gives shape to various fears specific to the lives of its teenage protagonists concerning the fragility and/or instability of their parents, their homes, their school, their community, their place within these. Pick a passage that addresses one of these issues, and discuss how it serves the specific chapter, and the story as a whole.

9. The mysterious spiral’s manifestations, distortions and mutations based upon more intimate, personalized obsessions and fears -- sexuality, attraction, blemishes, deformities, vanity, beauty, weight, etc. -- manifest symptoms recognizably derived from real life (e.g., bulimia) before they erupt into impossible extremes. The hideous logic of Uzumaki lies in part in the way the spirals make public such private fears: a central conceit in many nightmares. Choose a single sequence in any of the six chapters that marks the transition between a believable, “real” situation and the point at which it tips into the fantastique -- how does Ito stage this transition, as a writer, as an artist? Does it work for you? If so, how does it work? If not, why not?

10. Which manifestation of such intimate fears in these six chapters did you find the most personally affecting? Which did you find the least affecting? Why?


OK, I'll expect your writeups by this evening, no excuses!

BTW, Dave and Josh did a great job on the shelving yesterday -- I'll be happily racking books the rest of the week. Still a ways to go, but at last it's underway.

Have a great Wednesday!