Ladykillers!

First Look at Faux-1952-Four-Color Fun!

[Photo ©2010 Naomi Kane -- CCS Class of 2011, no relation to Bob Kane! -- posted with permission.]

So, yesterday morning at 10 AM the Center for Cartoon Studies frosh Class of 2011 rolled out their completed quartet of 32-page comicbooks — and they were all amazing, I kid you not.

So, the assignment was: in just two weeks, to create from scratch a faux-1952 four-color comicbook.

That means cook up the title, create the logos, characters, brainstorm the story or stories (plural is almost always the case, especially given the format of early 1950s comicbooks), script, pencil, letter, ink, color, complete all production (including ads, editorial, text, letters pages, etc.), print, collate, staple and fold (and ‘bone,’ as in to use a tool called a bone to crease the fold and flatten the comics) the completed comicbooks in two weeks flat.

The assignment is announced at 10 AM on a Tuesday morning in Jason Lutes‘ class, and must be ready to distribute at 10 AM two weeks later that same Tuesday morning class.

I’m biased about my team’s Ladykillers, of course: our faux-’52 Pre-Code comicbook, lovingly edited by yours truly and created and completed by the six-person team of Naomi Kane, Tom Casteel, Jesse Mead, Josh Kramer, Carl Mefferd and Andy Christensen.

But the other three are knock-outs, too!

Robyn Chapman edited Young Temptations, a 36-page (32 pages of content plus covers) faux-’52 romance comic by Lawrence Derks, Lauren Hinds, Max Mose, Pat Barrett, Emily Steele and ‘Carl Jupiter’; it boasts three stories, “I Loved Two Brads!”, “An Exotic Heartthrob,” and “I Was the Invisible Girl,” along with the text story “A Recipe for Love.” My half-century old hormones are still racing from the initial read!

Jason Lutes edited the faux-1952 Aussie western The Dingo Kid, corralling the creative impulses of Betsey Swardlick, Lean Chandhok, Benjamin Indyk, Jacob Montgomery, Paul Swartz and Kevin Uehlein; it’s the only #1 issue of the bunch, and a terrific origin issue it is, too — by my standards, the meatiest read and neatest character invention of the quartet, but hey, I’m a Mad Dog Morgan fan. Bushrangers rule in my imaginative universe, and The Dingo Kid pushed all my buttons!

Co-editors Paul Karasik and Alec Longstreth forged the one superhero title (faux-’53, for reasons I didn’t ask about and they didn’t offer to explain) with the formidable talents of Beth Hetland, Ben Horak, Jon Fine, Corey Middleton, Jesse DuRona and ‘CJ Joughin’ lending an ear (and eye) to the adventures of Earshot and his Supersonic Sidekick Sonar! It’s a spot-on evocation of the Dick Sprang era of Bob Kane’s Batman and oh so much more — honorary score on my non-existent scorecard for the coolest-looking villain (the Subterrian) and nastiest premise for a villain (the Earwig).

This project was originally conceived and launched last January with the Class of 2010 (graduating this May!) being the first-ever CCS class to be thrown into this pressure-cooker assignment.

With that maiden voyage, I worked last year as editor of the Solomon Comics (our CCS comics imprint for these faux-Golden-Age-to-1950s comicbooks) horror title, The Dark Tomb of Dread — Jason edited the adventure title, Thrilling Tales of Adventure; James Sturm edited Fantastic Tales from Beyond the Future; and Paul Karasik edited Wacky, Silly, Funny Animals. 

The results were spectacular, and the die was cast. This assignment follows on the last major team project of the freshmen fall semester — a team project creating their own anthologies (using thematic springboards provided by Jason Lutes in his class) — and is a major skillset builder for all aspects of working collaboratively and in seeing through production of such a venture. It’s also quickly become one of my favorite CCS projects, requiring exhausting long hours (at all hours) from all concerned, but yielding intoxicating results which I’ll share with you over the next few days here on Myrant.

For starters, though, here’s the black-and-white cover of Ladykillers — conceived and pencilled by Carl Mefferd, logo by Naomi Kane from Josh Kramer’s initial conceptual sketches, inks by Bissette, production overseen by Josh Kramer; ©2010 Solomon Comics and the respective creators, all rights reserved.

Color cover and more coming up tomorrow! Stay tuned!

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Odds & Ends

This & That

Above: Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, doing what the GOP does best thus far in 2010: Lying.

* My old friend Tom Vincent (formerly colorist for Marvel, Comico, etc. back in the day) posted this link to this interesting UK journalist David Runciman’s essay pondering the bizarre quandry of why middle and lower class Americans so passionately support corporate and political interests contrary to their own well-being and interests:

Give it a read or listen.

“…it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform – the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state – are often the ones it seems designed to help.

In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%.

Instead, to many of those who lose out under the existing system, reform still seems like the ultimate betrayal.

Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?

Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?”

My country has gone insane — time to sort out why, how, and what’s going on here.

Runciman puts his finger precisely on why the GOP has continued to spin the Democrats out of the system, why Bush beat Gore in the 2000 debates, and why President Obama and his team have failed so miserably to ‘brand’ reality in a way that serves his administration’s goals.

In short, the Right are sharper storytellers, folks. Furthermore, as ace storytellers, the Right gleefully channels inchoate anger, the Left refuses to until it’s too late.

Time to apply our storytelling chops to this equation, fellow creators, and jump into the fray…

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* Philip K. Dick afficianados, pop on over

Some of the covers are black-and-white reproductions from ads or sf magazines, but it’s still a mighty impressive gallery worthy of some study — for Dick fans, illustrators, art directors and anyone curious about how to market the unmarketable (in their original run).

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* Ever hear of The Clangers? Beanworld creator Larry Marder (whose seminal 1980s comics creation is finally back in print from Dark Horse Comics) hadn’t, missing out on the at times uncanny parallels between the invented ecology and familial links of the British children’s stop-motion animation TV program The Clangers (1969-72) and Larry’s own Beanworld. Stick with me, now: The Clangers were produced by the Smallfilms team of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmi, and The Clangers sprang from a popular British children’s books series which spun off the Smallfilms TV program Noggin the Nog. The publishers, Kay & Ward, started by adapting the TV episodes of Noggin before their success led to an original, not-based-on-existing-TV-episodes educational reader series Noggin First Reader, which included a one-shot title Noggin and the Moon Mouse (1967) — and those Moon Mice became the extraterrestrial Clangers. I think I’ve got that right.

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* My pal Cat Garza (aka Cayetano Garza Jr.) is in the home stretch — just a few more installments to go! — of finishing his Ignatz-Award-winning digital comic “Year of the Rat”!

Congrats, Cat — it’s been a long, hard-won accomplishment in an environment that still doesn’t ‘feed’ its cartoonists (since you’re all addicted to free content; that’s the core challenge for all 21st Century cartoonists: how do you feed with free?), and a terrific read for those of us paying attention. Kudos to Cat!

[Year of the Rat art above ©2010 Cayetano Garza Jr., posted with permission.]

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* Though I announced it on the Vermont Monster Guide page long ago, it’s worth noting that Joe Citro and my Vermont Monster Guide (with color cover art collaboratively created with Cat Garza, Jr.) is up for a rather esoteric regional award, and we’ll know on February 8th whether we take the prize or not.

“Admission is free. Creative attire is encouraged. The awards are a contest organized by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research to honor the best art made in New England and exhibits organized here in 2009.”

Joe, Cat and I are up against two books by friends of mine: In the “Artists, Book” category, The Vermont Monster Guide is competing with Marek Bennett (“of Henniker, New Hampshire”) for Breakfast at Mimi’s and Nicaragua: Comics Travel Journal, and CCS co-founder James Sturm (“of White River Junction, VT”), Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederic-Frost (CCS Pioneer Class of 2007, former students of mine)’s Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics. What a rush!

Joe, Cat and I won’t be there, but we’ll be eager to hear who wins. All deserve the prize in my eyes!

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* Looking for creative editing and inventive filmmaking on a one-hour YouTube jaunt this past weekend, I stumbled onto this trio of gems which are likely old news to everyone out there, but they were new to me.

Both — well, OK, three: the first video, and the two that follow — are the creations of two very imaginative teenagers from across the oceans, and they put much of what passes for “imaginative filmmaking” here in America to instant shame — and they’re literally doing it in their rooms. And to think, this is what a couple of 21st Century teenagers can do with their creatively-directed narcissism and free time sans corporate backing; it gives one hope for our collective future (in one way).

Look, understand that the entire American underground film movement sprang from similar impulses when it was restless California teenagers like the late Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger spilling their egos and ids onto 16mm film in the 1940s (Harrington’s Fragment of Seeking, Anger’s Fireworks). Yes, I think this is comparable in terms of the raw potential; that said, this YouTube generation is far more playful in their self-indulgences. If nothing else, this is fun stuff.

Kudos to Levi Beamish (in New Zealand) and Charlie McDonnell (from the UK), have a look at just a snapshot of their labors, and enjoy!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. For these two young filmmakers/videographers alone, you can see more at

Over and out!


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