HAPPY EASTER, one and all!

Hey, it's the Easter -- uh, canine?

Though there's nothing particularly Easter-like about this post, let me wish you one and all a great Easter. And leave it at that, save for the Easter Egg of sorts: another Criswell Predicts!, closing this post. Enjoy!

[Illo: Ross Wood Studlar, "Deranged Canine", copyright 2006]

The illustration I'm heading off with today is by Ross Wood Studlar, one of the stellar seniors at CCS I've been yammering about all week.

This is one of Ross's wilder creations, as much Seussian as Big Daddy Roth-like, but it's a particular favorite of many of us who know and love Ross. It was an experiment in wash and animal forms that is emblematic of his love of smearing pigment on paper and fusing and stretching elements of earthly lifeforms into -- well, see for yourself. I dig it.

I've got a lot to show you this morning, so maybe you should treat all the following as Easter eggs, though they might bite, and I sure won't be hiding them.

____________

I've been posting the student Center for Cartoon Studies links all week, and as promised will wind it up today with a peek at some of the art I didn't post (due to time constraints) for some sites, and a little more.

Among that "more" be the two links I've saved for your Easter Sunday,

Robyn Chapman's amazing "Unpopular Comics" site,

and the "Make Comics Forever" blog, which is a collective blog by a group of cartoonists, including Robyn, who are clearly obsessed with the medium we all so love.

Both are sorely in need of updating (the most recent blog post is February, for instance, and Robyn no longer lives in Brooklyn, she's White River Junction/CCS all the way now!), but it's all new to you, I bet, so just check 'em out, and now! Robyn, BTW, is the first-ever CCS Fellow -- and a fellow faculty member. She's an excellent cartoonist, a tough editor (kicked my sorry ass out of an anthology last year, justifiably so), and a great all-around person.

[copyright 2007 Robyn Chapman]

Just go with the flow, now --

I have been coyly dishing out these links so as to open your eyes to the students themselves, cartoonists, all! But

here's the all-purpose CCS student websites/blogs link I've been hoarding, which I'll now post in the permanent menu of links on the right for future easy access.

But that isn't all: I still owe you some peeks at the CCSers whom I didn't post art from this time around. Here's a mini-gallery of images from everyone I previously short-shrifted in the image department.

Along with Ross and Robyn, here's peeks at images by (from top to bottom, in no order other than my random access to art this AM) Adam Staffaroni, Sam Gaskin, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Josie Whitmore, Andrew Arnold, Jon-Mikel Gates and Colleen Frakes:

[copyright 2007 Adam Staffaroni]

[copyright 2007 Sam Gaskin]

[copyright 2007 Alexis Frederick-Frost]

[copyright 2007 Josie Whitmore]

[copyright 2007 Andrew Arnold]

[copyright 2007 Jon-Mikel Gates]

[copyright 2007 Colleen Frakes]

Hmmmmm, there's also these good folks and cartoonists -- vet pro Rich Tommaso, CCS students Caitlin Plovnick, Emily Wieja, and the effervescent Ignatz-Award-winning CCS fellow (and what a fellow) intern Ken Dahl (aka Gabby) -- who don't have sites, that I know of, but are selling comics via the link below the four images, below, by Rich, Caitlin, Emily and Ken, natch:

[copyright 2007 Rich Tommaso]

[copyright 2007 Caitlin Plovnick]

[copyright 2007 Emily Wieja]

[copyright 2007 Ken Dahl]

And as a reminder, for those in need of more material, "in your hand" access, to this new fountain of comics,

here's where you can buy, one-stop, much of the new published work emerging from the CCS stew of creativity,

which now accepts both PayPal and credit card orders, so there's no reason to hesitate ordering some goodies right now, today, this morning;

and here's where you can order the first-ever, all-new graphic novel to emerge from the CCS student experience, Alexis Frederick-Frost's extraordinary Xeric-Award winner La Primavera (2006)!

What are you waiting for? Hell to freeze over, or the Earth to bake?

___________________

The current era of 21st Century duality we find ourselves in is endlessly fascinating. Debate is debased to the unwieldy sham of presenting two "opposing views" -- best of all, extremist "either/or" "views" in complete polar opposition -- as the only viable "views" to be considered. It's bullshit and it's doing immeasurable, perhaps irrevocable harm to us, as a nation, as a culture, as a people and as a planet.

President Bush, Karl Rove and their pack of junkyard dogs have refined this form of "dialogue" to a perverse art, subverting debate entirely by eliminating any measure of conversation, consideration or due logic. They are culpable, but hardly the sole or even key culprits -- the media, so addicted to sound and image bytes, has played a prominent role in this reductionist insanity, as have the citizenry of the US. It's a form of collective madness, really, though it's not yet been diagnosed as such -- and the mad, well, they just don't see a problem.

When your "choices" are false choices by definition -- "stay the course" or "cut and run," for instance, in the case of one ongoing sore point in the international arena -- presented with such vehemence that one is also prevented from addressing the initial actions or inactions that precipitated the untenable situation one finds oneself in, four-to-six years later (choose your case history to apply this to), rational discussion, debate or action is rendered nearly impossible.

This is, of course, a strategy as well as a symptom of collective madness, and it succeeds brilliantly all too often.

It's a false duality, though, and typical of the obscene 'black or white' think this current generation has embraced like sheep.

Over the past few weeks,

this link has been spam-emailed to me more than once, most recently from one Luke Przybylski, which claims to link to "a recent BBC production, [which] is constantly dissapearing [sic] from Youtube and Google Video, only to be uploaded once again by concerned members. See it while you can..."

I love the intro to these spammed "science" exposes: "Before we all subscribe wholesale to the secularist rapture theology we've come to know as Global Warming, I think it's important to hear from the dissenters; climatologists and other scientists who were effectively barred from the mainstream (politicized) scientific "community" after their findings diverged from the manufactured consensus presented by the UN."

There is, of course, no 'rapture' whatsoever implicit or explicit in the science of climate change research and investigation.

The affixing of that term to the sentence is in and of itself misleading, with intent: it plays to two sets of prejudices. On the one hand, it's an alert signal to those predisposed to belief, in some measure, to 'the rapture,' and thus suspicious of anything that smacks of secular science. On the other hand, it ridicules science in the eyes of those who do not subscribe to belief in 'the rapture.' Thus, the cynical adoption of the phrase "secularist rapture theology" cuts both ways, a masterstroke of manipulative agitprop of the worse (and most seductive, to many susceptible minds) kind.

First, though, let's frame the subject itself -- Global warming -- with some objectivity.

Clearly, something is going on, and on a global scale.

But the reduction of the legitimate questions associated with "What is going on?" to this false battle -- over which extreme "side" is "right" or "wrong" -- ignores the obvious.

Something, globally, is changing with the Earth's climate. What is it? What's causing it? What, if anything, can we do about it? Those are the vital, literally the life-or-death, questions.

Where ever one lives, the evidence is manifest: there were never annual wildfire seasons on the mindboggling scale we see (or experience); the winters have clearly changed in Vermont and New England in a significant, measurable way (this year was the warmest winter ever on record), and the climate changes have already yielded measurable results. It's all around us, here, and if you talk to those who have worked all their lives in the affected arenas, sometimes carrying on generations of tradition it's irrefutable that something fundamental is changing: ski seasons abbreviated to a mere six weeks; maple syrup yields down and maple trees showing limb damage, loss and degeneration; apple orchards blooming too early; etc. These are all having momentous impacts upon our home state: the life cycles, ways of life, traditional livelihoods.

Of course, the 'dissenters' habitually refer to the scientists on "their side" (most of whom are corporate-funded shills) as now besieged and ignored "experts," neglecting to note that "their side" has held sway for decades now, actively undermining any advances the 1970s environmentalist movement gained in the wake of a prior generation's most obscene excesses: Lake Erie rendered toxic, rivers that could be lit on fire, etc. The nay-sayers have had the full weight of the current Bush Administration behind their ongoing campaign to deny any climate change -- or, admitting that, any human culpability in said climate change -- for the past six years.

Reality has caught up with them. Hence, they are now besieged and ignored.

The wording of this particular piece of spam is telling. The nay-sayers are embracing tactics familiar to those of us invested in the more-than-a-century-old conflict between Darwinism and Biblical literalists. Note the now-current contextualizing, the cloaking, of global warming and the related sciences in the vocabulary of matters of faith.

This is accomplished in a heartbeat, almost invisibly to the casual reader, via the inverted logic of the phrasing, "the secularist rapture theology we've come to know as Global Warming" -- it's a cynical adoption of the Creationist/Intelligent Design tactics which deliberately plunges science into the realm of religion.

This conceit, born of and insistently refined by the Creationist and Intelligent Design corruption of science (neither is, of course, a 'science' at all), is the most insidious aspect of this spam, denying science as having any validity whatsoever by framing science, as a whole, as a matter of faith; that is, science recontextualized into the arena of religion.

This is a complete misrepresentation of the reality and function of science -- all the sciences -- by instantly relegating science, per se, from the natural world to the supernatural realm, the realm of religion, faith, and belief.

Thus, any 'science' one objects to, be it climatology or paleontology, Darwinism or ecology, geology or biology, can be handily refuted if one redefines science, or 'the' science deemed objectionable, as not being science at all, but a religion -- a matter of faith, of inherently fallible interpretation of unknowable, unquantifiable supernatural phenomenon (which, being supernatural, cannot in fact be properly defined, observed or measured), not analysis of natural phenomenon.

This is, at best, delusional projection, and at worst reprehensible misrepresentation and caricature. It is a lie, a lie built upon a lie, an abomination in terms of both science and of religion.

I always wonder what motivates such generation of falsehoods -- a knee-jerk breaking of one of the Ten Commandments, a lie -- and what the person insisting upon such inherently corrupted logic stands to gain. "Follow the money" is applicable, though "follow the faith" is the more religious (Christian) thing to do, really.

Why this refusal to grasp a measurable, quantifiable, and increasingly obvious reality? Is it just too scary?

In this case, the only human beings who could possibly benefit from an orchestrated denial of the realities of climate change are those who will profit from that denial -- corporate energy providers, corporate polluters, etc. -- and those who still buy into the corporate falsehood of "free market" as having any validity in an economic environment increasingly controlled by multinational corporations who function above the law in every arena.

This past week found one of the GOP's most insistent nay-sayers on the topic changing his tune a bit, arguing now that Global Warming "may result in the relocation of 600 thousand South Sea Islanders" but will be a boon for real estate values in the northern states -- to which one can only respond with either laughter, despair, or the pragmatic solution of working to ensure this bozo is canned in the next election cycle.

Huh. Interesting. Now that a few of the nay-sayers have to admit that, indeed, something is going on, their spin is: "how can we profit from this?" The only ones to profit, of course, being the rich. Fuck the poor. Those 600 thousands South Sea Islanders can bake if there's no money in it.

Anyhoot, Tony Millionaire responded to being on Luke's Easter weekend spamming of the link by emailing all receiving the above link and attendant bogus "science"

this link to another online video that competently refutes all the crapola being shoveled about Global Warming by its "opponents," as if one could be "opposed" to climate phenomenon (in reality, simply pretending nothing quantifiable is going on).

The naysayers will continue to refute the evidence of their own eyes, bodies and experiences until they're either dislocated, relocated, drowning, burning to death, starving, or profiteering from the new real estate boom in Wisconsin and the Dakotas.

If that's the current scraping-belly nature of "the debate," fuck it, give me what Drinky Crow's drinking!

Tony, wit that he is, also opened his email reply by saying, "First of all Luke, I'd like to thank you for adding me to the 120 people on your Cc list."

Yep, thanks, Luke! Thanks, Tony! Thanks, Drinky Crow!

___________________

Criswell Predicts!

I predict that our Scientists will be concerned aobut a mysterious cloud appearing over the moon two years after we land there! The cloud will stay there, hiding the moon from earth view, much to the amazement of the world! Many will say it is created by living people beyond the moon to deter our new progress in space! I predict it will be Mother Nature's warning that we are going too far and to immediately stop!
______________________

Happy Easter, One and All!

CCS Musings: Week Two

The sense of community is palpable; I felt it as soon as I walked into the CCS/Colodny building (an hour before my class begins -- always a little early these days). James Sturm was sitting across from the entryway, visible through the main floor classroom, talking to the attentive gathering -- "Hey, Steve!", he called over, and I waved to him and all with a clear view of the doorway. James looked and sounded relaxed, clear, open; quite a contrast to our first week, when everything seemed claustrophobically overwhelming.

(Man, does this bring back memories of my first month at the Kubert School... but I won't bore you with that old-man-dribble today.)

As my amigos know, I have a tendency to over-prepare and become compulsively fascinated with the nuances and details. Of course, that's where the stories are -- "the devil's in the details," some say, but devil that I am, that's also where the meat and potatoes reside. I've been working hard at narrowing the focus of the comics studies class since winter, first intent on the goalpost of turning in a comprehensive syllabus back in March, thereafter targeting what, exactly, I could convey to the students in a mere fourteen sessions of 2 1/2 hours each.

Inevitably, material worthy of attention has to succumb to the editing process. I have marvelous resources for presentations on and discussion of the Bayoux Tapestry, illuminated Medieval manuscripts, the 15th and 16th Century Dances of Death (primarily Hans Holbein the Younger's 1538 edition and 1491/1500 The Danse Macabre of Women), etc., but something had to give.

Week One instead focused on the Japanese ghost scrolls (with a quick follow-through to manga and anime, showing a few examples of that culture's 17th and 18th Century intermediary works -- this improvised after Michelle Ollie mentioned to me that Christine hoped to show anime to her fellow students in later weeks), Mixtec codices (primarily the Cordex Nuttall, with a peek at the incomprehensible but exquisite Codex Borgia), Bosch triptyches, the European broadsheets (primarily the 'crime and punishment' broadsheets), Hogarth, Goya, and capping with a 'preview' of the comic strips to come via a presentation on Winsor McCay's work in comics and animation.

Of course, one of the first questions I was hit with: Why had I passed over the Bayeux Tapestry?

Bingo!

You do what you can, and what there's time for.

I've also tried to turn liabilities into strengths: for instance, I'm not yet versed in either scanning or powerpoint presentations (a learning curve I'm working on in hopes of debuting power-point next week), and my available stash of slides are genre-specific (selected and shot for my Journeys Into Fear horror comics history presentation). So this week's session -- covering relevent 19th Century landmarks, the origins of the American comic strip, transitional stages in bound comics (from Toppfer's 1830s 'picture-stories' to the first bound comic strip collections), and the birth of the comic book format -- became a hands-on, 'show and tell' session, with me placing as many hard copies of books and comics pages in their hands as the timeframe would accomodate. In a way, it's too bad I will be versed in powerpoint for next year, but realistically these old books couldn't handle annual handling... still, it was very cool to be able to place the books themselves in the students' hands.

As any comic reader knows, reading is as much a tactile sensory experience as it is visual: the feel, weight, smell of the books and pages are essential to the experience, a reality increasing reliance on digital presentations eschews. Touch is as essential to the drawing/creative process as thought and visual engagement with the work at hand, and that can be fueled and enhanced by hands-on contact with the published work of their precursors and those-who-walked-these-paths-before. Though they would only be able to spend a few minutes at best scanning the books, it was still hands-on, and I think that's vital.

Soooooo, I kept the slide show to a minimum (about ten slides) and instead platformed the class session around hands-on scrutiny of relevent books throughout the lecture. The new layout of the classroom -- a U-shaped looping of desks, with the open area naturally facing the instructor's lair (and slide/projection screen) -- meant my determination to find two samples of each key publishing landmark was worthwhile: I could hand each row a copy of the relevent publication to look at and pass down, looping back up to my end of the room.

This required a quick trip south into Massachusetts to powwow for lunch with one of my best friends in the world, G. Michael Dobbs aka Mike Dobbs. Mike and I had hoped to get together in any case -- Mike had his own agenda, wanting to bounce around ideas relevent to his current book project -- and the timing was solid for either this week's or next week's class. Mike has been teaching at the college level for years (he has far, far more experience than I!), and he came to our lunch meeting armed for bear, much to the benefit of my CCS class.

Between Mike's collection and my own, the students were able to check out a lot of goodies as we skipped like stones over water, touching on as many of the key 19th and early 20th Century comics landmarks as possible. My handouts put a quick overview of Rudolphe Toppfer's works into their hands (with a more expansive handout accessible for them to copy if they wished, and James came in to offer access to Comic Art #3's excellent illustrated article on Toppfer), along with two samples of Outcault's seminal Yellow Kid (October 1897 single panel and multi-panel offerings) and a photo of the first comics-derived movie star: Opper's Happy Hooligan as played by Vitagraph co-founder J. Stuart Blackton, circa 1897.

Better yet, I had two copies of contemporary reprints of Wilhelm Busch's works (Max & Moritz, 1862-5, and a later lesser-known work The Adventures of a Bachelor from the 1870s); three dramatic examples of the Life-spawned books from 1905-1911 (two of Uncle Sam creator James Montgomery Flagg's pint-sized satiric hardcovers and one of Charles-Dana Gibson's gloriously oversized pen-and-ink collections); examples of the two dominant comic strip collection book formats from the early 1900s (Fisher's Mutt and Jeff, McManus's Bringing Up Father); the Penguin reprint of Frans Masereel's Passionate Journey; three of Milt Gross's jazz-era gems (first editions and reprints); and much more.

Mike had thoughtfully offered, and suggested I include, examples of the late 1960s underground newspaper comix and comix inserts, including an original Air Pirates, which was indeed invaluable and instantly caught everyone's interest. These kinds of connect-the-dots-across-decades not only lend greater urgency to the earlier works that are the primary focus of a lecture like yesterday's -- it gives me an opportunity to touch upon how the pioneering work of prior generations may fuel the students' own work, an assertion that carries a bit more weight when one can spotlight (however briefly) a phenomenal cartoonist like Bobby London adapting the styles, kinetics and aesthetics of Segar and Herriman for his own work, and his own generation (thanks again, Mike!). I also steered them all to the strongest comic strips collections in the CCS library, and urged them to make time to sit down with the books and read some of the strips. Losing yourself in these marvelous early works is essential, and that's the best opportunity presently available here.

All in all, I think it was a good session. Now to get to work on next week's session... covering the whole of post-1919 comic strip history in 2 1/2 hours.

Hey, James, want to crash the party long enough to sing the praises of Roy Crane?
_____

If you don't check the comments posted on earlier blog posts, allow me to bring to your attention a significant followup to my Monday post on regional comics.

This from one of the participants in the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center 24-Hour Comics Marathon of August, a gent who also teaches comics in Keene: Marek Bennett, who is an active member in the (hyper-)active Keene Comics Group (who had already sponsored their own 24-Hour Comics session a couple months before the Brattleboro event -- and most of 'em came to that one, too!).

Steve --
Amazing synchronicity! On this very day (September 19th 2005), my new weekly comics series launched in the Keene (NH) Sentinel. It's called Monadnock History Comics, and will be archived at my website,

here.

I'm aiming it towards teachers, and developing some curriculum to guide students in creating their own local history comics; I'll just post this announcement and let the project's website explain itself.
-- Marek

Thanks, Marek, and I for one will be visiting your site often!

Marek's Monadnock History Comics are the relevent portion of the website, and I urge you to check 'em out

here.

History in the making, and a timely contemporary of the celebrated Texas History Movies I referred to on Monday.
____

Yesterday afternoon, Robyn Chapman broke out fragile copies of an Alaskan newspaper her grandmother had edited throughout the 1960s and '70s. The paper serviced a tiny community a-way up North, and Robyn's grandmother had graced every issue with a regular page-two comic strip of her own creation. It was crude but effectively delineated, and judging from the look of it (the labored look of some panels, thickness of the line, and pasted-in typed word balloon text) guessed that Robyn's grandmama had been working at times with those stubborn mimeo stencils of yore -- a sort of carbon-like non-paper that had to be cut into with metal tools, which stymied any but the most simplified and labored illustration efforts. I used to work with those damned things in my elementary and junior-high school years (1960s), which jived with the dates on a couple of the newspapers Robyn was showing us... my heart goes out to her grandmother!

Anyhoot, another cool example of regionalized comic strips, and a subject ripe for further research. Certain film archive and academic circles have embraced the preservation and study of home movies (16mm, 8mm, and Super 8) of prior generations, and this equitable turf in the comics medium is equally worthy of scrutiny and preservation.

A Post about My Day One Teaching at CCS, with No Kittens or Devil Tomatoes in It

You know, vet blogger Neil Gaiman posts all kinds of neat stuff, including "name the kitten" contests and "what to do with my Demon Tomato" and such. Here, you just get gnat-boy-Bissette. Well, until a kitten stumbles to our door or tomatoes we don't grow sprout horns, this is what you get.
_______

Day One at CCS: My first class at the Center for Cartoon Studies has now come and gone, and I reckon it went pretty well, though you'll have to ask the students themselves. When Rick Veitch and I got together for a bit Monday afternoon (I was picking up copies of MaxiMortal for the class -- required reading along with Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow), he asked, "are the students doing imitations of you guys yet?" At Kubert School, we all had our teachers down in the first week or two (with the exception of Hy Eisman, whom no one could mock as well as Hy himself did). You gotta have a sense of humor in this biz!

As I entered the classroom, James Sturm was leaving for the day, bag slung over his shoulder and clearly exhausted. He quietly said, "I forgot how exhausting teaching could be," and was gone. I intended to ask if he wanted to have supper in town, but so much for that!

(Note to self #1: Whatever James looks like as I enter the classroom is a fair approximation of how I will feel three hours later. Observe and plan accordingly. PS: Pack a return-home meal easily devoured in the car; discourage yogurt or oatmeal, even if still teaching after all my teeth have fallen out.)

Though there will be two massive assignments at the halfway point and end post of my 14-week class, I made it clear from minute one the only requirement for a passing grade in my class is to show up. I've got the final session (3:30 PM to 6 PM) of the most jam-packed day in the CCS schedule, so I see myself as an instructor in that I will share as much information and visual stimuli as possible while covering the history of comics in 14 sessions, and as a showman in that it's my job to keep everyone awake long enough to absorb the shit I'm tossing at the fan (heh heh, savor that metaphor, oh Constant Reader). Henderson State University professor Randy Duncan put me in my place earlier this year when he explained to me that he can cover the history of comics in, like, ten minutes. Ya, well, so what, Randy? I can summarize Moby Dick in one short sentence, too. So I'm grand-standing at 14 weeks; still, it's a lot of ground to cover, and we managed to skate from the 12th Century to 1912 and only go over schedule about twenty minutes yesterday. However, because I didn't circulate a variation on Randy's handy-dandy class questionnaire, it took until 6 PM to discover at least some of my students had never, ever heard of Winsor McCay, which I cleverly inundated them with nevertheless.

(Note to self #2: Bring more Winsor McCay.)

I made the mistake of loading and unloading my car before class with over a dozen boxes of materials for the CCS -- two boxes of books from Rick Veitch (Rick donated slightly-damaged copies of the BratPack collected to the students, too), a box of Comics Journals duplicates from my collection, and tons of stuff from the CBLDF. Thus, I was a somewhat stinky, sweaty 50-year-old cartoonist presenting myself to my class Day One, wearing my now-stinky, somewhat sweaty gekko t-shirt.

(Note to self #3: Always pack a change of shirt for CCS; maybe a change of shorts and/or Depends, too. You never know if a moose will wander onto 91 en route to CCS and cause one to shit oneself, if one survives the car wreck. Better yet, don't pack and unpack a full carload prior to teaching on Mondays.)

Furthermore, it took longer than anticipated to prepare all the handout materials. As I mentioned to everyone from the get-go, covering the history of the medium in 14 weeks means we cover breadth of material with little depth -- unfortunate, but that's the reality. I will be annexing every session with abundant handouts (yesterday I provided two chapters on decoding Mayan and Mixtec Codices; a cherry-picked selection of early American single-panel comics from the 1700s to 1860s; a handout originally prepared for my Journeys Into Fear horror comics lecture, featuring a sampling of J.G. Posada's work and two complete full-page Winsor McCay Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend strips; and photocopies of my 1975 independent comics studies proposals to Johnson State College, just to show that I had been in my student's shoes 30 years ago, before the term "graphic novel" even existed). Now, I had either prepared myself, or left last week with Robyn Chapman, most of the material, leaving only the two chapters on codices to copy, and arriving an hour early to see to completing those two handouts. Alas, I had not reckoned with the inevitable non-cooperative stapler and length of one of the chapters. Robyn saved the day, and I managed to clear the stapler of backed-up-bend-staples without ripping open any of my fingers.

(Note to self #4: Bring my Bullhonker Stapler next week, and never, ever present oneself to class bleeding like a stuck pig. Sweating is bad enough. PS: Be sure to ask Michelle or Robyn where CCS First Aid kit is, in case, despite all precautions, I do rip my hands to pieces fucking with the goddamnedmonkeyfelchingmotherfuckershitass stapler.)

All in all, the first session went pretty well. Ever the showman, I consciously incorporated some video clips into the presentation, the best of which were undoubtably the McCay animations. The clip from Carl Dreyer's Vampyr (1931), however, should be avoided at all costs in the future (I should, however, find some method of using it during future trips to the dentist; Dreyer works better than novocaine any day of the week).
Though I've got to be careful not to use video too often -- animation is not comics, nor did I present it as such -- it is occasionally of great value. The fact that some of the students were unfamiliar with McCay and his body of work definitely meant the inclusion of Little Nemo (1911), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914 -- not 1912, as many sources erroneously state) and The Pet (1921) was worthwhile.

(Note to Self #5: Avoid silent movie clips, as students will be unable to stay awake sans soundtrack. PS: Bring rubber bands to fire at students drifting to sleep during sadistically-selected silent film clips in future.)

Well, I could ramble on, as I did in class, but you get the idea. Listen, you should have been there. If you'd just shown up, you'd have an 'A' for the day!

This first CCS group is pretty amazing, and I'm eager to work with them beyond just the comics history sessions (excuse me, the class is actually entitled "Survey of the Drawn Story"). I'd like to be able to associate more than just names with faces: I've yet to see anyone's art, and that's something I hope to rectify soon enough.

_______

Oops -- reckon that wasn't James Kochalka's dad I met on Saturday. Relative? Friend of James' Dad? I don't know -- the man spoke softly, and it was noisy in the CCS beehive. Anyhoot, a correction, and this from James hisself:

"I read on your blog that someone at the CCS grand opening introduced themselves to you as James Kochalka's father, Jim. My father's name is not Jim, and my father was not at the opening. Either you mistyped, misheard, or someone played a little joke on you I think! He is a "gent wearing glasses" though, that much is true. If you had been able to attend the opening at the Brattleboro museum, you would have definitely met my father for real.... I don't fault you for missing the opening at all, although it would have been fun to have you there. You probably would like my dad if you ever get to meet him. He's 87 and very friendly and open and even goofy. He was making up poems off the top of his head for Peter Money!"

Thanks for letting me know, James. Well, that cinches it -- besides, the fellow I spoke to told me he was 53 (at the time, the math struck me as odd, I must say -- but hey, some Vermonters do have their first children at age 15). Hmmm, the mystery remains. My apologies to James and to whoever it was I met -- my mistake. James added:

"P.S. I taught the first class today and we're off to a good start! Very exciting."

It is, indeed (on both counts)!

[Postscript: It was CCS student Jacob Jarvela's father; I've revised the original post to note that fact. Sorry!]
_____

This just in from Al Nickerson: "Remembering The Creator's Bill of Rights and the discussion of creator’s rights continues with a letter from Erik Larsen (thanks, Erik). Erik addresses Dave Sim's letter concerning The Creator's Bill of Rights and the Neil Gaiman vs. Todd McFarlane feud..."

Yes, it does,

right here.

Erik addresses Dave, ignores mere-gnat-Bissette completely, and opens succinctly with, "Heck, I’ve never read the darned thing." Erik concludes his first paragraph with, "At the end of the day, the Creators’ Bill of Rights real value may come from simply spelling things out in a form people can understand and utilize in their negotiations with a potential client," which is what I've said from the start, so I'll take this as reaching some consensus, even if Erik has never read the darned thing and clearly doesn't care to talk to me.

I'll only further mention that Erik and Dave sidestep the Gaiman/McFarlane issues as they did first time around, agreeing to dis the all-female jury and how unfair to Todd they were in their judgement, and that's that. (C'mon, everyone, all together now! "Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh -- poor, poor Todd McFarlane.")

Which brings me back to Neil's devil-horned tomato.

More CCS opener weekend impressions:

It was remarkable how many people -- and what a diversity of people! -- passed through the CCS doors on Saturday. It was a blast to meet so many of them while doing sketches for 'em, all the while looking up and over at the other lines standing at the sketch stations.

One gent wearing glasses came over and leaned in toward me, introducing himself as Jacob Jarvela's father [note: in the original post, I mistakingly named this fellow as James Kochalka's father!] Jim and asking me if Forrest J. Ackerman and Famous Monsters of Filmland had played any part in my growing up. "You know it!" I replied, and we ended up talking about his own affection for FM and his visiting the Ackermansion in its glory days, before the lack of interest in it becoming a museum and the auctions eroding the Ackerman collection. I mentioned my visiting Ray Harryhausen's London home in London back in the early 1990s, and when I told Jim about Mr. Harryhausen showing me his Gustave Dore first editions collection, building up to the revelation of an original oil painting by Dore, Jim paused and said, "I just had a shiver go up my spine."

Robyn Chapman is already one of the anchors at CCS, though I expect she might shrug or blush that off just now. Amid Robyn coordinating many of the CCS opening day tasks, all while clicking as many photos as she could, I bustled in Saturday with a trio of folders with handout material for my first class tomorrow afternoon. Just what she needed: another distraction. Robyn accepted it without hesitation and made sure we went over everything before Marj and I left for the evening. Bless you, Robyn!

Yesterday afternoon, CCS board member Bayle Drubel and her husband Richard hosted a big-fun BBQ shindig at their beautiful home in Hanover. It was a motly crew of CCS faculty, board members and students from all walks of life, there with families, high energy, and appetites. We converged at CCS at 4 PM, and I brought in the laserdisc player Alan Goldstein donated to CCS and a heap of laserdiscs for the CCS library from Alan's and my own collection, and I got to meet and chat with a few more of the students (forgive me, folks, it will take me time to match names and faces). John from Ludlow arrived in his pickup with his brother, whom I met, and Alexis in his pickup ended up being our 'point man' in the caravan of vehicles en route to Hanover. Marj and I drove Sam and Ross -- two CCS students from Massachusetts and West Virginia, respectively -- to and from the BBQ, dropping 'em off at the venerable Coolidge Inn upon our homeward-bound pass through White River. To think, some months ago, this is the lobby I walked into for the CCS fundraiser where I met Alison Bechdel and where Art Spiegelman spoke -- now, some of the students are living here. It's all real now; it's more real this morning, as they're ending their first class ever on the first day ever.

Bayle and Richard were incredibly personable and generous hosts, and their multi-tiered back yard gardens provided a memorable arena for the first CCS blowout. Or, I should say, second -- some of the students were still bleary-eyed from their own partying the night before, and that's the important first blow-out, where the real bonds and lasting energy happens. Anyhoot, this was the first blow-out we got to indulge in, and it rolled from a little after 4 until 6:30, the day before school starts. As James said, "A great way to kick off our first year." We got to chat with some of the Board members and a few students (including one from Holland!), chow down on hot dogs and/or burgers, and wander Richard's splendid gardens, which the Drubel's cultivated in a mere four years (according to Richard, it was all brush, brambles, and dirt when they moved in). The little kids loved it, and were soon rolling down the lawn at the base of the gardens, down toward the Dartmouth pond while students, faculty, and friends of same played frisbee and Sam soaked in the warm waters of the pool on tier two or three, down from the house.

Richard was a fascinating man, first talking about comic strip favorites (and bringing down the local paper to show me the return of Berke Breathed and Opus to the color Sunday pages) before conversation eased into talk of plants and his garden. I rather teasingly replied to his talk of how obsessive garden-and-plant lovers could be with a question about sundews (tiny carnivorous plants that once grew along the pond my kids grew up with on Lower Dover Road in Marlboro), and Richard knew exactly what I was referring to. No carnivorous plants in Richard's garden, but no telling what grows in the greenhouses we passed on our way out to the cars at the end of the BBQ...

Marj and I ended up sitting at the peak of the grassy hill that inclines down to the pond, where kids little and big were rolling with glee. The little ones, of course, could do so with impunity; it was comical to see older bodies trying for the same pleasures discovering head-to-neck-to-shoulder distances proving no longer condusive to the graceful rolling of childhood, or the post-roll dizzy rattling their pins.

The pond, it seems, is not the most alluring body of water to be found in NH. Bayle grimaced as she described the carp-kill that had to be removed from the pond a couple years earlier, while I watched what must have been trout breaking the surface to scarf down the late-afternoon insect cusine flitting over the surface. The pond is a fixture of Darmouth winters -- a preferred skating surface, and also home to some sort of polar-bear-like ritual involving Dartmouth students chopping through the ice to swim in the winter waters -- and a wedding gathering at the Dartmouth Outing Club at the end of the pond two or three houses away were serenading all with a lively mix of music blaring. This led to dancing by the cattails at the edge of the pond, as Richard told Marj and I the Outing Club is also the site for an annual Jewish ritual involving the casting out of sins via bread thrown onto the water. That means the fish are growing fat on sin at least once a year, which is already feeding a story idea for down the road... another unexpected dividend from yesterday's gathering.

There was much, much more, but that's all I care to share right now. It was a great day, all in all, and I can't wait for tomorrow -- my first day of teaching. Will let you all know how it goes....

So, the Center for Cartoon Studies opened yesterday at 1:58 PM, and a grand and glorious day it was, too.

The drive for Marj and I from our home to the CCS doors is about a 90 minute haul. It couldn't have been a more beautiful day -- sunny, cool, mild -- and though it's still late summer, there were a number of maples along interstate 91 beginning to show their colors. The characteristic first-bloom of autumn: radiant orange leaves at the uppermost tips of top branches, punctuated by the occasional raptor overlooking the roadside, eyeing possible game. The hawks and falcons are out on days like yesterday and today, hunting even at midday. Still, about 25 minutes shy of White River Junction and the CCS, I caught a glimpse of my odometer when it hit one of those rare mileage palindromes: 133331.

We drove into White River about a half-hour before the scheduled 2 PM opening, and Marj got her first look at the CCS operation. Marj was mighty impressed, though the crowd of new faces and names was a bit overwhelming. For me, many of these faces and a few names are already familiar, including a few of the students, one of whom (John Nicolls from Ludlow, VT) I first met at the 24 Hour Comic Marathon in Brattleboro a couple of weekends ago. One student made a point of telling me she'd read "Moving Day" on the blog, and that was gratifying -- hope it provides some link between her own experience this week, month, year and my own in '76.

James Sturm and Michelle Ollie have been hard at work all summer with the help of numerous contractors, sponsors, and a number of interns, including Robyn and Allie, who were both at the opening; Robyn is working at CCS for this first year, but Allie popped in to savor the event though she's back at college seeing through her senior year at Smith. They've completely renovated the old Colodny "Surprise" Department Store -- the word "Surprise" is indeed on the original awning that stills shields the front door and display windows -- which had never housed a surprise like yesterday's. But first, Michelle and James had to shoo us all out of the building onto the sidewalk for the ribbon-cutting ritual and opening festivities.

James Kochalka's son happily tugged the ribbon down before it was due to be sheared, but no worries: Michelle and a little scotchtape took care of that. With CCS-t-shirt wearing students, a lot of faculty and staff, visiting dignitaries, fans (and faithful donators to the CCS library like Tom Laurent, who drove up from Western MA to be there), and curious WRJ citizens crowding the sidewalk, James climbed atop a milk crate (alas, no soapbox) and declared: "It's 1:58, but what the hell," and launched into a short, sweet speech. The ribbon was cut, and James Kochalka mounted the crate to debut the official CCS school song, which was roundly cheered and will no doubt be sung in the hallowed halls of CCS for eons to come.

After much huzzahing and gnashing of teeth, we tottered back inside and manned our respective stations. Guests could sample a generous spread of food, snacks, and drinks, and each were given an official CCS sketch board with a series of blanks in the bottom left-hand corner where they could choose the subject of their sketch: "Dog," "Alien," "Stick figure," etc. Students and some faculty were seated in the main classroom area at tables, with the respective subjects posted, and guests could then go up and get their sketch completed right before their eyes. It was a two-hour sketching marathon; I joined one of the students I'd met earlier this summer, Elizabeth (Chasalow), at the "Alien" table, and we drew tons of aliens of all shapes, sizes, textures, and dispositions. It was quickly established that my aliens tended to be vicious and toothy (no surprise there), at which point I established the entry line to all guests who approached me, "Would you like your alien benevolent or malevolent?" Elizabeth's were all benevolent, given her nature, while mine ran the gamut. One family with two little ones, Emma and her younger brother Ben, were eager to get their alien sketches toward the end of the afternoon. Ben's dad assumed he'd want a benevolent alien, but when I asked "scary or friendly?", Ben scrunched up his face and bellowed, "SCARYYYYY!" Emma got a sketch with both benevolent and malevolent aliens at repose, and all seemed pleased with their booty.

James and Michelle had also set up a "Finishes" table -- where students added blue and gray tones to the sketches -- and another student manned a "Quality Control" table where each sketch was rubber-stamped with the red CCS logo, thus marking it as an official harvest from CCS, Day One.

My favorite moment nobody else saw: At the end of the day, we all blundered around outside in a haze of adrenalin and exhaustion. The littlest kids, though, were wired. Peter Money, poet and CCS faculty member, hunkered down on the sidewalk to entertain James Sturm and Rachel Gross's daughter (who had been drawing chalk aliens on the board behind Elizabeth and I earlier) with a poem. She stopped for a moment, paying rapt attention to Peter, than dashed away with a laugh.

OK, now we're off to the CCS BBQ!