Apparently the first volume in the IDW King Aroo reprint project has been solicited in this months Previews eyesore --  this is a series I'm really looking forward to as I find Jack Kent's strip delightful (there's a word I rarely type) and an example of great pure cartooning chops. And my daughter might enjoy it, as well. Maybe. I'm basing this on the character designs, all the cute creatures running around in the strip, and the gentle nature and humor of the strip. And the puns, she's getting into corny old gags in the way most of us did when we were little. I never know what comics she's going to respond to, to be honest. For a long while she wouldn't read anything with people in it, Dennis the Menace was out for that reason. Now she has taken the Toon Treasury away from me and has gone through it multiple times, without missing funny animals, kids, gag pages, even the Briefer Frankenstein pages, which I thought might turn her off. Then again, she read print-outs of the first issue of Beasts of Burden #1 in black and white, while we weren't around, and startled us at the dinner table one night by quoting the "eat 'em up frog" (as she put it) demon (she also calls it the "eat everything frog"). She quoted the frog in a funny kid monster voice, and it was very funny, but Sarah gave me the "I thought we agreed not to leave those pages lying around" look. And we did agree not to let her see the pages because some of them are kind of nasty, and as it turned out, Emily was bothered by some of the events in the first issue, and told me I wrote it "wrong", because the deaths of two animals in it upset her. We have since never admitted the existence of Beasts #2, for reasons some of you might understand after reading that issue. She knows #3 exists because she's seen pages on the computer, it's the "Orphan goes looking for his girlfriend" story (as she puts it), and while there are some gory bits, it's an adventure and not a downbeat, depressing bit of work.  There's no way she's seeing #4, because there's some horror stuff in there that I don't think she'd like.

She's also been "stealing" my copy of the first Cul De Sac collection lately, and she seems to like it, although she doesn't get a lot of the strips. But she keeps reading it. Kills me to watch her reading comics. You see, there's this kid in my house, right, and she's little and cute and she's ours and she's reading some of them there funnybooks. Who'd have thunk it? Not me.

Anyway, off tangent, what else is new. Didn't expect to be posting, but I'm taking a break in-between working on some strip layouts and so there you go and here I go and who knows where it goes. But speaking of the Dick Briefer Frankenstein comics, I read that Fantagraphics has announced a new slate of books, including a reprinting of this material. To which I say sweet, because along with oddballness like Herbie Popnecker and a few other projects, this is a cult series that many folks have wanted to see back in print. Hopefully enough folks out there are interested in order to make it viable for the long haul. Who knows.

And it gets better, or worse, if you consider your wallet and shelf space, because FBI's also doing collections of lesser-known 50's horror comics, an Alex Toth collection of his Standard Comics work, a pre-Plastic Man Jack Cole collection, a book on EC cartoonists' work at other companies, and a Basil Wolverton book. So, you folks who are into these sorts of things better start taking a few bills outta your mom's bag or your dad's wallet each and every week because this is gonna be an assault on the cents-less. So many good books, and I'm not half-wise to everything IDW is announcing (I did read about a Polly and Her Pals oversize Sundays collection, apparently a $75 "Champagne Edition" -- hell, I like bells and whistles and all, but give me a decent Budweiser Edition, fer chrissakes!), or Dark Horse, or whoever else is helping grow the pile. Hell, Captain Easy still hasn't debuted, supposedly Walt and Skeezix is getting back on track, the John Stanley library is up and running, more Harvey stuff, more DHC Little Lulu,  I mean, holy goodnight! You can't sell a comic book outside of Marvel and DC that isn't Buffy or whatever-related (I oughta know, after seeing the numbers on beasts #1), and they're not even selling a ton of the aforementioned, but somehow scores of classic comic collections are making their way into the world. Not that I'm complaining. It's just so unprecedented and unforeseen; going back a few years, that it's hard to imagine it isn't a geekanerd fever dream.

Anyway, I just hope 2010 isn't the dam bursting on the reprint trend and we're not hitting the motherlode overload anytime soon, because at some point this has to start choking shelves and bringing consumers to their financial knees, but while the gettin's good, this is a goddamned Golden Age of great comic gatherings, guys and gals. This is history in the re-packaging, and bears attention.

Or maybe it's a sinister alliance with Ikea to sell even more Billy bookcases.

So, anybody looking forward to any of this stuff? Anything you've heard about that is of interest? How about them Yankees?  

No, no Yankees, I don't really care, in fact I really don't care, anti-care, could care less. No Yankees, no NYC mayoral race, no creepy rich people sports of any kind. Just funnybooks, today. Glorious, ridiculous funnybooks. Them I understand.

I just caught the Dark Horse solicitations for November at Major Spoilers, so, since the cat's officially out of the bag, as it were, I can now share this swell Jill Thompson cover with you folks.

Issue #3 focuses on the Orphan, the sole cat member of the team, who goes on a little adventure with a friend of his, The Getaway Kid (head of the Swifties, the local stray cat gang).

Here's the solicitation text:

The first feline member of the Wise Dog Society, the Orphan, takes on his first cat-only investigation, searching through the sewer tunnels for a missing, long-thought-dead witch cat. Accompanied by a tough stray, the Getaway Kid, Orphan’s trek into the wet, slime, and filth will bring him more trouble than his Wise Dog hocus-pocus can protect him from—and even if he finds the witch who’s been haunting his dreams, they’ll all still have to escape alive from all the dark horrors that lurk underground . . .

 

I keep forgetting to post about the movie I Love You, Beth Cooper, which came and went like the singing career of William Hung.

Actually,  I don't have anything much to say about the movie, I didn't see it, you didn't see it, most folks didn't seen it. I've been meaning to post about the re-release of the novel that ties-in to the movie. As some of you might recall, I did the cover/chapter illustrations for Larry Doyle's novel, which was the basis for the film. The tie-in version features 16 pages of new comics and illustrations that I drew (the comics were written by Larry Doyle).  

Here's a few pages from the tie-in you didn't see:







Anyway, things have been extra stupid around here as of late, and I ended up not plugging the tie-in, I meant to, but I didn't actually know when the movie was coming out, and my comps arrived late, and I could have just looked it all up but I was busy and I figured the movie would be around for a while. Well, I figured that until I saw the trailer, but then it was too late. Yeeks. Anyway, apparently it nosedived in theaters fairly spectacularly.

So I figured now is the perfect time to bring the book up.

I have extra copies of the tie-in sitting around, untouched by the basement flood we just had. Which means I have a few to give away, if anybody's up for it. The book was a hit, if not the movie, and you get some new drawings I did. The new edition also has my old cover (reproduced inside as a title page) and all the chapter illos are in there, which means you get a lot of my so-called 'art". For free!

How to win: It's easy! Tell me why you chose to not see I Love You, Beth Cooper. Or, tell me why you did see it (!?!), and let us know what you thought of it. Be honest, it wasn't my movie, the project's been very kind to me but I have nothing to do with the film, so it can go screw a sailor as far as I'm concerned.

I'll pick a few folks to send a book to based on the replies and my capricious whims.

Sayonara.



The original cover. This book won awards and was made into a film. A success.



The floppola movie tie-in cover, with the tv star and the manboy behind her on the cover. A failure. This is the one I hear they're giving away for free on the internet.

On Wednesday, July 15th, the very funny and perceptive Elliot Kalan will be presenting "The Devil and Daniel Webster" at the 92Y Tribeca. As Elliot puts it, this is "the best movie about a U.S. Senator battling Satan ever made".  It's actually a terrific old flick, from 1941, based on the famous story, and starring the great character actor Edward Arnold as Daniel Webster, and the equally great character actor Walter Huston as The Devil. As a bonus you get the amazing Simone Simon as a temptress from Hades, a year before she famously appeared in in "Cat People". Courtroom drama, homespun backwoods humor, ghosts, demons, you get it all here. Works terrifically, even the hokiness is nicely presented. I love this flick, you might, too.

Elliot will be speaking about the film after it's over, I've heard him speak and he's a very funny and intelligent guy (who happens to write for The Daily Show, and does stand-up in the NYC area). Apparently the venue has a bar (that may or not be open. I've never been there, myself). I'm hoping to go but my schedule's a mess, so I dunno. But, please, check out a cool movie and listen to a funny guy talk old films afterward, on a larger than usual screen. Elliot previously showed The Thin Man, and if there's a good response to these screenings, there may be more scheduled in the future.

Here's the info:

"The Devil and Daniel Webster" hosted by Elliot Kalan
Wednesday, June 15th, 8pm
92Y Tribeca
200 Hudson Street, Manhattan
Tix: $12
Buy 'em online at http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-MM5FJ28

ALSO!

In funnybook event news: this Thursday, July 16th, at MOCCA, Picturebox's Dan Nadel will be in conversation with the great David Mazzucchelli, he of Daredevil, Batman, Rubber Blanket and Asterios Polyp cartoon fame.

Here's the PR they sent out so I don't have to type anymore:

Please join the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art - MoCCA for
David Mazzucchelli and Dan Nadel in Conversation
Thursday, July 16, 7 P.M.
at MoCCA, 594 Broadway (between Houston and Prince), suite 401, New
York, NY 10012
 
Here's a map for the venue for those with Manhattan-itus.

Mazzucchelli and Nadel will discuss Mazzucchelli's work, and the
exhibition, Sounds and Pauses. Mazzucchelli will sign copies of
Asterios Polyp and other books after the conversation.

About David Mazzucchelli:
David Mazzucchelli has been making comics his whole life. Known
chiefly for his collaborations—with Frank Miller on seminal Batman
and Daredevil stories, and with Paul Karasik on an adaptation of Paul
Auster's novel, City of Glass—he began publishing his own stories in
1991 in his anthology magazine, Rubber Blanket. Since then his short
comics have been published in books and magazines around the world.
Asterios Polyp is his first graphic novel.
Okay, got that? Lots of David's art on the walls, and good comic book talk. And you can get your copy of Asterios Polyp signed and annoy David by asking him when he's going back to draw Batman. Tell him I sent you! Ha ha! Again, I want to go, but my schedule won't allow, most likely. But both of these events are up my alley, maybe up yours as well.

Huh. Sorry for the "up yours" thing, didn't mean it to sound that way.

When we attended TCAF two years ago, Jeet Heer was nice enough to show us a pre-release copy of the oversized Sundays With Walt and Skeezix. (published by Sundays Press, who have also released several amazing Winsor McCay books and have just solicited a book of Oz strips)   When we saw how absolutely beautiful the strips looked, Sarah made a comment about how if we ever came across a cheap, possibly damaged copy, we could buy it and remove some of the pages to frame them. We had a copy on pre-order, but I wasn't going to chop up a $95 book, even one purchased on store credit.

Anyway, as I posted recently, some cheap copies popped up on Amazon, and we purchased one for the framing project. Our plan hasn't quite worked out, however, as Emily has started reading the second copy, and has sort of adopted it. Not that I'm complaining. Seeing her pore over the book kills me. She's been quoting some of the dialogue ("Well I'll be jiggered", being the line that cracks me up the most) and really enjoys reading the strips, especially the ones where Skeezix is a toddler. Emily has up until now had a strict policy of not enjoying comics that "have people in them" -- she's been reading Disney books (mostly Donald Duck), some old Disney film adaptations (mostly Dumbo), Molly and Emmett comics from Ladybug magazine (Molly is a girl but Emmett is a cat), Polo (two new volumes out soon), Johnny Boo (ghosts and a monster) and Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks comics in an old Whitman collection. She has been reading Julie and Grampa: Shark Hunters, actually, which has human protagonists, but there are a lot of talking animals in that as well. And there are monsters and creatures in Magic Trixie and Scary Godmother, which she's nuts about. But Dennis the Menace was out, as were several other comics "with people in them". But so far, the Walt and Skeezix Sunday strips have passed muster, perhaps because of the many dream sequences and strips based on Halloween and Christmas and whatnot. Who knows, I'm not going to press her on it, we let her enjoy what she likes and don't shove anything down her throat if she's not interested. For some reason she won't read Hideshi Hino comics. Don't ask me.

We never pushed comics on her, but they're everywhere in the house, and many of her children's magazines feature comics of some sort,  and by osmosis or what have you, she's reading comics. It's fascinating -- to us at least (your kids are always fascinating to you, but some folks have the idea their kids are fascinating to everyone) -- to see which comics she gloms onto, and which ones she dismisses. As a parent and a geek and a cartoonist, I have to admit it's a thrill to see my daughter reading funnybooks and enjoying them. And reading in general. I did not grow up in a house filled with books, which I have always regretted. But let's not get into that. This is a happy post. It is.

Those of you following the Twitter feed already know that I finished up the strip I'm doing for TCM.com as part of their TCM Underground Lost Scenes feature. The Underground is the late Friday night slot where TCM airs sturdy Psychotronic cult flicks like Freaks, The Terror of Tiny Town, Reefer Madness, Plan Nine From Outer Space and Spider Baby,  The "Lost Scenes" themselves are 3-4 page comic strips depicting fictional lost/cut sequences from the films, done by folks like Pete Bagge, Stephanie Gladden and Troy Nixey. 

Anyway, my bit is a prologue sequence for 2000 Maniacs, which will be on the April TCM schedule. 2000 Maniacs, for those who don't already know, concerns itself with a town in Georgia inhabited by, um...two thousand maniacs. These two thousand terrible maniacs do terrible things to five or six terrible actors, resulting in some terribly contrived death sequences (that, at the time of the film's release, were considered incredibly gory and shocking). The prologue I did shows the town hall meeting where the Mayor and residents of Pleasant Valley finalize their weekend plans. Parts of it are very Murder Family, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I'll let y'all know when it's a'comin'.

In the meanwhile, time for sleep.

This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, blah blah blah.

I'll be signing comics (if anyone asks me to) and doing free sketches (ditto) from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Comic Book Jones shop here on Staten Island. It should be pretty laid back. If nobody wants anything I'm just going to sit on a couch and read comics for a while. Sarah will be dropping by late in the day, I goofed up and made plans for the signing without remembering it was the same day as a local event we wanted to take Emily to. Duh. So, the gals will drop me off like a ruined omelette at the comic shop and head back once they're done acting like normal people enjoying themselves to watch daddy talk horseshit about drawings of superheroes and talking ducks or whatever the hell..

(Today Emily told Sarah, "Daddy likes that place", when they left the comic shop, as if she understood completely what kind of sad person I am when in my element. She also sounded a little sorry for me, I bet. I am alone even in my own home. But now my home has a copy of Willie & Joe: The World War 2 Years by the great Bill Mauldin, so I am temporarily happy in my little fanboy purgatory. And actually, Sarah digs Mauldin as well. Still...from what Sarah told me, Emily said "Daddy likes that place" as if they were helping me out of a bar I had disappeared into since late afternoon, hiding the fact that I had been fired from my job at the firm weeks ago).

More information on the signing and the store here.

Energetic folks can hit up both Comic Book Jones and the Jim Hanley's Universe on the South Shore and potentially load up on free stuff like there's no Free Comic Book Tomorrow.

Bring the kids while you're at it. Or leave 'em at home, just make sure they have some water and something to eat handy or whatever. You could always leave the T.V. on, it's not like comics, kids love that stuff and it keeps 'em entertained for hours and hours.
.

Here's one that freaks me out for various reasons:

On Wednesday, June 4th, Dan Nadel will moderate a discussion on comics featuring Kim Deitch, Lauren R. Weinstein and myself. The event is being put together by the NY chapter of AIGA,  which is apparently a professional graphic artists association whose membership is made up of professional graphic artists. Like I would know about that stuff. I had to leave the Nestle's Quik fan club because I couldn't keep up with my dues. Anyway,  it will be held at Galapagos, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and costs $30 for non-members to attend. I don't think I'll be seeing many familiar faces at this one, I can't get my readers to cough up thirty beans for my artwork half the time, forget shelling it out to hear me talk about my artwork. Or whatever it is we're going to talk about. Juxtaposition or something. Formal attributes of the thought balloon. Who's stronger, Hulk or Superman? Who knows.

I will wear my non-cursing mouth and try to behave myself. I'm not sure why I was asked to do this, considering how many cartoonists run amok in the NYC area, but, well, I'll show up and see what happens.

Kim Deitch!? Wow. That's crazy. And then I'm on a panel with Jaime Hernandez at Heroes Con later in the month. Crazy.

Details about the AIGA talk can be found here.