The Mighty Titan is coming

We all have our pet causes (Mine include the CBLDF, MoCCA, The Hero Initiative, & the Red Cross), and I know that you all have yours, still I want you to consider checking out the viedo below,and considering giving some of your hard-earned cash to my good buddy Joe Martino so he can launch his next comicbook project; The Mighty Titan.

Now I know that a lot of folks want you to help them launch their pet project, but for Joe, this is something more. You see, a while back Jooe had cancer, and he beat it...twice (which is why I keep telling him that he's a mutant, but that's a story for a different time).

Anywho. The Mighty Titan deals with a very powerful superhero who, in his "regular" life has cancer, This is the story of what that means, how it affects him (and, well, Joe), and what comes next. It is a powerful and compelling story, and I highly recommend that you all kick in to help Joe get it off the ground.

Thanks.

Dawning of a new age for Indie Comics

I remember at the beginning of the ‘80s how there was a literal explosion of Indie publications that made me excited to read comics again. Well, not sure what happened to all those Indie publishers (many went under), but it seems to me that there is a resurgence in Indie comics these days. To anyone who has any doubts about this, you should check out  MoCCA Fest and see what I mean.

Well I just picked up this new comic anthology called (of all things), Indie Comics Magazine, and the magazine delivers 64 pages (eight separate stories) of top-flight reading. The tales rang the gamut from horror to samurais, to humor, to superhero, to sci-fi, and none of the stories disappoint.

Helmed by Editor Gary Scott Beatty who’s first produced comic was on his high school’s ditto machine, after hours, and without permission. His story in this issue is entitled Jazz: Cool Birth, is a murder mystery set in a 1957 jazz club with art and typography based on ‘50s album cover design. The story helped earn him a Xeric Foundation Grant. Multi-talented, Beatty writes, colors, letters, and produces comic books and magazines for a diverse range of companies and has written for the Comic Buyer's Guide.

I highly recommend this comic, and suggest that you head to your local independent comic book shop and have them order it for you from Diamond.

A Contract with God

As many of you already know, A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories is a graphic novel that was written and illustrated by Will Eisner back in 1978, making it the very first Graphic Novel. It was originally published by Baronet Books in both hardcover and trade paperback editions. In the intervening years it has not only remained in print and translated into numerous languages, it was — in 2001 — acquired by DC Comics, marking the first time it was published by a major publisher. As this month we are celebrating Will’s birthday, we thought that it would be time that we actually purchased this seminal tome, and, well actually read it.

Thus, while we were at MoCCA the other day (at the kick-off of their four-month-long Eisner Exhibit) we picked up a copy of the book, and then read it on the train ride back to CT.

As can be expected, it is so not like what we call a graphic novel today (which is to be expected, as Eisner was exploring new ground with this volume). The first thing that I noticed was that instead of several panels per page as in most modern-day graphic novels and comics, each page was essentially a single panel, and yet, not so much a panel as an illustration accompanied by text (sometimes in word balloons but just as often, not). Second, as its title indicates, it is not so much one story, but four inter-related tales linked by a single theme, all occurring around a specific (if fictional) tenement building in the Bronx.

According to Wikipedia:

The work consists of four short stories — A Contract With God, The Super, The Street Singer, and Cookalein — all set in a Bronx tenementin the 1930s, with the last story (Cookalein) also taking place at a summer getaway for Jews. The stories are semi-autobiographical, with Eisner drawing heavily on his own childhood experiences as well as those of his contemporaries. Utilizing his talents for expressive lettering and cartoonish figures, he links the narratives by the common setting and the common theme of immigrant and first-generation experiences, across cultures.

From my own perspective, reading the book gave me a wonderful look back into the beginnings of this, my preferred form of entertainment. The writing and illustrations display the very building blocks of this industry (much of which seems to have been lost if one were to look at most of what passes for comics these days). Still, beyond the beauty of the illustrations and the poetry of the words themselves, the stories themselves harkens back to a time of both neighborhood, and a piece of Americana that doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

In a world full of pre-apocalyptic, overly-muscled, testosterone-enhanced, spandex-wearing neo-fascist, crypto-thugs (all calling themselves “Heroes”), the pure simplicity of Eisner's tales is like manna from heaven. If you have not read this book, or if you have read it and it is somewhere on a shelf in your den, you truly owe it to yourself to buy it today (or pull it off the shelf), and immerse yourself in the wonderful world of Eisner’s New York City.

Happy Birthday, Will Eisner!

Today, March 6^th, 20011 is Will Eisner’s 94^th Birthday. This is important to know, because Will is one of those guys who help invent the comicbook, the graphic novel, and is revered by virtually everyone in the industry today (so much so that the comic book industry's “Oscar” is call the Eisner). No really. He was an amazing guy and if you read comics, and live in the NY Metro area, you really owe it to yourself to go to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA), and check out their amazing exhibit that is currently on display over there.

The exhibit runs from March 1– June 30, 2011. The Museum is located at 594 Broadway, Suite 401
(btwn. Houston and Prince), New York, NY 10012 (Tel. 212-254-3511 Fax 212-254-3590). Admission $5 and Free for MoCCA Members.

To honor Eisner, and his numerous contributions to sequential arts (a term he himself coined), Google has altered it's logo to display Eisner’s most renown character, The Spirit.

The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art

If you have never heard of The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) it is time that you learn. Located in New York City, the purpose of the MoCCA is “the collection, preservation, study, education, and display of comic and cartoon art.” It is the Museum’s goal to represent very genré of the artform, including animation, anime, cartoons, comic books, comic strips, gag cartoons, humorous illustration, illustration, political illustration, editorial cartoons, caricature, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and computer-generated art. In fact, the goals of the museum goes further than that, as its collection policy ensures that the art collections are maintained in an environment of the highest integrity.

It is the mission of the museum to promote the understanding and appreciation of comic and cartoon art as well as to detail and discuss the artistic, cultural, and historical impact of what is the world's most popular art form. Comics and cartoons have been instrumental in effecting significant dialogue on issues involving society, culture, philosophy, and politics. History has shown them to be instrumental in documenting--and interpreting--historic events and social change. Artistically, comic and cartoon art is created at the highest levels by some of the world's finest graphic illustrators.

Yep, that’s it, the museum‘s intent is to educate the public about the historic, educational, and entertainment value of comic and cartoon art. It is the museum’s stated goal to demonstrate through lectures, panels, and gallery shows to demonstrate how it is crafted, and how it reflects history, the time period in which it was created, and how does the art and storytelling itself stands the test of time.

Anyway, as I said, MoCCA is located in NYC (594 Broadway, Suite 401, (btwn. Houston and Prince), Voice: 212.254.3511 / Fax: 212.254.3590). The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because last night I went to the Museum to attend a panel hosted by Arie Kaplan with Victor Gorelick, Stan Goldberg (respectively Editor in Chief and long-time artist at Archie Comics). While I was there I joined MoCCA giving me free entry to the Museum, all MoCCA events, and and 10% off MoCCA purchases.

How cool is that?

Oh yeah, while I was there I picked up a copy of Archie Digest # 260 which contains an original story by Arie where Archie and the gang went on a field trip to MoCCA. By purchasing the comic (and joining, I also received a free copy of DC/Vertigo’s The Unwritten, which turned out to be something of a cool issue.

Needless to say, I’m suggesting that if you live in the NY tri-State area, and you ever find yourself in or near the Village, you really owe it to yourself to check out Mocca, and join, you’ll be glad that you did.

I know that I am.

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.

Button, Button; whose got the Button?

So, as I mentioned, Over the past weekend I was at the MoCCA show and had a great time. Even to the point where I helped my client move more product than he had been able to move at each of the last three shows where he had displayed. To be sure I credit a couple of different factors helping in that area; first, it was the type of show (geared more towards the small press publishers), and second, it was us actively interacting and engaging the potential client. (If we sat back in our chairs and talked among ourselves behind the table, folks just walked by with their cash in their pockets, if we stood, and chatted the audience up, we tended to separate them from their cash, and sell our product. Funny how that works, eh?)

Any way, one of the very cool folks we met were the extremely nice folks at Twin Comics. Well, not only do they produce some cool comics, but they have an online web comic entitled Night Owls that is currently being hosted over at Zuda. Well, we got to know them quite well, especially when we learned that they were making little buttons for a buck and drawing anything you wanted on the button.

What most of us opted for, was a B&W picture or ourselves (except Mark Lear who — for some inexplicable reason — chose to have them draw my face. Anyway. this proved to be the coolest bit of collectible at the con, and I think I sent about 20 people over to their table to buy a button. Needless to say, when I got home the first night I showed my button off to my daughter, whose immediate response was “Why didn’t you get one for me, daddy.” The following day I went back to the Twin Comics booth and purchased two more buttons; one for my daughter, and one for my niece (who was visiting us at the time).

I think that they did an outstanding job on the buttons, and everyone who purchased one over the weekend clearly enjoyed theirs as well. So if you ever see Twin Comics at a con, go over to them, flash a buck, and ask for your face on a button, and tell ‘em that I sent you over.

In the mean time, you can follow their blog if you so choose.

Two Days of Mocca

So, this past weekend I spent a couple of days at the annual MoCCA comicbook convention MoCCA is the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NYC. If you have never been it is far different from virtually every other comic book show in that the stars of this show are not Spider-Man, Superman, and the other heroes from the big three (four, five?), but are the small, independent comicbook publishers (like Atlas Unleashed). Yep, this show is the Sundance Film Festival to NYCC’s Oscar extravaganza.

Unlike at many shows that spotlight mainstream comics, where I can walk around all day long and never reach for my wallet, I felt that while I was at this show I found quite a number of books that I wanted to acquire — and yes, I put my hand in my pocket to pull out cash quite a few times.

Among the item that I purchased were Craig Yoe’s Secret Identity. A book that talks about some lost treasures drawn by Joe Schuster. I blogged about this a while back, but this was the first chance I had the opportunity to actually get my hands on a copy of the book. Craig very generously autographed the book to me (after I paid him for the privilege of owning it). I’ll talk more about the book after I’ve had the chance to read it, but I think it was a terrific find by Craig, and I’m glad that he wrote about it.

I also picked up a copy of Jobnik, which is the story about Miriam Libicki, an American Jewish girl from a religious home who — one summer against everyone's better judgment — moved to Israel and enlisted in the Israeli Army. Jobnik is her illustrated account of that journey. I had met Miriam a year ago at last year’s MoCCA and picked up a copy of her comic. I’m glad that she has issued the first six issues as a trade paperback, and I also scored a copy of issue #7 as well.

All-in-all, this was a very good show, and I had a great time and managed to conduct some business as well, not only for myself, but for my client as well. Now, after spending the weekend as a rock star, I get to come back home and finish writing my entries for The Official Index to the Marvel Comics Universe.

Talk to you all later.

Yes, June Belongs to Belkis!

We already met my good buddy,
Ravi Wilki who pals around with the guys at The Filament Factory is (as you can see) is an extremely talented artist, and previously contributed to James Rodriguez’s, NovaStar Studios Fantasy Art Calendar.

Sure, sure, we are now halfway into the year, but this is still a smoking-hot calendar, James, Ravi, and the rest of the folk who contributed to the calendar are wicked-talented, rising-star artist, and, well, Belkis is always worth looking at, even in two dimensions.

As for my pal Ravi, he is so talented, that I would certainly love to work with him, perhaps on something relating to zombies.

The Filament Factory is a cadre of extremely talented NYC artists and writers (who throw wicked-cool parties), put up with me, and will be exhibiting this weekend at the MoCCA comicbook show in NYC.

I too will be there with Atlas Unleashed. Stop by and visit us if you can, it promises to be a rockin’ good time!