Telling Tall Tales

So, last night I went into NYC to attend an interview/lecture with Al Jaffee. If you don’t know Al, then you are way too young, or simply did not have the same ill-spent youth as did I. Al is one of the premiere cartoonists from Mad Magazine.

In fact, he’s the reason that I’m a smart ass to this day. After the event I was able to meet him and tell him that. I said that my father hates him, my wife hates him, but I think that he’s great. The evening was hosted by MoCCA (the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art), and moderated by Danny Fingeroth and held at Columbia University.

Al, you see, gave us (among many other things), Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, the Mad Fold-in Page, and well, a whole bunch of other iconic gags. In fact, I purchased his book Tall Tales, which is a collection of his syndicated work from the mid ‘50s to the early ‘60s. Back then one of the surest ways that a cartoonist could stay employed was to have a syndicated strip. Needless to say, the newspaper space for cartoons was limited, and if someone got their strip in, then it meant that someone else got booted out.

Al worked around this by developing a cartoon that was one newspaper column wide by 7" tall. In this fashion, he wouldn’t have to supplant some other struggling cartoonist, but would allow newspaper editors the ability to use his strip as a “filler” of sorts, and place it anywhere in the paper. Al took it a step further and made the strip wordless so that he could syndicate it overseas without having to have it translated.

This worked for some six years, when (according to the story that Al tells), some junior exec at the syndicate informed him that “Americans don’t like wordless cartoons”, and forced him to add words, which he did and was promptly dropped by 35 overseas papers. As could be expected, this caused some damage to his relationship with the syndicate, and they parted ways.

Well, with the publication of Tall Tales $14.95 (Abrams), several of the best cartoon from that series have been reprinted, and man are they still very funny. The cartoon I’ve reproduced here is one of my favorite in the book.

So if you are looking for a gift for someone this holiday season who had an ill-spent youth readingh Mad Magazine, you’ll want to check this out. Oh yeah, and if all that isn’t enough to get you to buy the book, it has an (all too) brief introduction by Stephen Colbert.

Trolling the Convention Trail

Last weekend (Sunday, November 19, 2006) I went into NYC to attend Big Apple’s humongous comicbook and Sci-Fi show (The National). As usual, I was there representing both Guild Works Productions, and the Comic Artists Guild. I am, you see, the Communications Director for GWP (that’s our comic over there on the right, click the link and go buy a copy). It was a very entertaining show that I attended. Interestingly enough, walking around a convention with a name badge on garners some interesting attention. You see, folks would read my name, recognize it, and then asked me how they know me.

My response is usually the same, “Well I’ve been writing in the fields for quite some time with credits going back to Amazing Heroes, The Comics Journal, Wizard, CBG and elsewhere.” This usually gets a response that they remember my name. Well one of the fellows that I ran into over the weekend (Dan Fogel) was the publisher of an underground price guide, when he realized that I was an editor for an overground price guide (Comics Values Annual) he invited me to join him on the dais for his panel.

Unable to turn down an invitation to pontificate about comics, I accepted. Granted his panel was the last of the day, and there were only something like 15 or 20 folks who attended, it was still both an honor and fun. While at the show, I was (along with GWP Creative Director Mark Mazz and CAG Art Director James Rodriguez, and Rammer Martinez) interviewed by The Horror Channel (hey, I didn’t even know that there was a Horror Channel!) I can’t tell you how cool this was. So, you just know that I’m going to register for and go to the NY Comicbook Con in Feb.

Also While I was at this convention, I ran into my old Marvel Age editor, Jim Salicrup (back when it was an internal Marvel promo mag) — who very generously gifted me with the con sketch that you see here (Jim also works with the Museum of Comic and cartoon art in NYC) — as well as Danny Fingeroth (author of Superman on the Couch — a very fine discussion of superheroes). Of Course my favorite cover artist Melvin Ylagan was also there, as were other CAGers and folks I know. So yeah, I’m really enjoying going to conventions these days.

This past Thursday was Turkey Day, and I spent it at my Brother-In-Law’s place, and he told me that the Spider-Man reprints that are currently running in the NY Post are also appearing in the Danbury News-Times, and that he has been saving them for me. He forgot to actually give me the copies that he has collected, but not that I know he has been collecting them and will continue to do so it quite cool.

Well, that’s about it for this week., got to get back to the grind (hey I’ve gotten two or three new scripts written that are targeted for the upcoming CAG/GWP comics. and now I have to type them up). Ciao.