§ Headline of the day: Corrections officer also a cartoonist
§ Paul Gravett’s Angoulême photos. [Via Forbidden Planet]
§ Tom Brevoort presents the Golden Loeb Award winners.
§ Dutch comics coloring analysed (Thanks JP!)
§ The First Second Spring 08 catalog is up. Left, DRAWING WORDS & WRITING PICTURES Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond by JESSICA ABEL & MATT MADDEN.
§ Librarian/conference-goer Karen Green discovers that the American Philological Association has discovered the graphic novels:
At the APA, I discovered that one of the things people are working on is comics. There was an entire panel devoted to comics, and the response to the organizers’ call for papers was so overwhelming that they’re planning a book. George Kovacs of the University of Toronto and Professor C.W. “Toph” Marshall of the University of British Columbia collaborated on this panel with the APA Outreach Committee, whose goal is to bring in attendees from outside the classicists’ world. Marshall, himself one of the panelists, is a scholar of ancient Greek performance and stagecraft, who studies how an audience approaches a text.
§ Likewise, English Language Notes, a literary journal is looking for entries for a graphic novel issue.
The comic book pamphlet developed as an independent literary form in the 1930s and early 1940s and has become a favorite of adolescent readers and cult devotees ever since. Recently, it has entered into a process of transformation, moving from a species of pulp fiction on the margins of children’s literature to a subsection of mainstream writing, one the late Will Eisner famously termed the graphic novel. This transformation has been noted in such literary venues as the New York Times and the New Yorker, as well as in an increasing number of university classrooms and bookstore aisles. Nevertheless, criticism on the graphic novel remains insular and diffuse. The interpretive response to the graphic novel remains to be written.
§ Another short stint on a comic as Sean McKeever leaves BIRDS OF PREY.
§ The Onion presents a surprisingly wide list of 20 pop-cultural obsessions even geekier than Monty Python. Stalwarts such as Rocky Horror and Star Trek are joined by fantasy sports leagues!
Re: Geek Obsessions
1. Most of the examples were pioneers in a specific field: Star Trek with science fiction television, Magic with collectible card games, Warcraft with online gaming, Rocky Horror with audience participation.
2. Star Trek is the gateway drug. Everybody has seen it, knows the basics, and the licensing has pervaded every media. (At least five comicbook companies have published Star Trek comics.) If Trek doesn’t pioneer a field, such as slash fiction or cosplay, then the fans and/or licensees will take a given field and adapt it.
3. Monty Python fans are not geeky. Sure, we may sing The Lumberjack Song in German, but do we dance with fishes, wear hankerchiefs on our heads, or engage in silly walks? Well, not in public. «SQUEEK»
Python fans are similar to those who enjoy show tunes, Warner Brothers cartoons, or baseball teams. They may possess esoteric knowledge about a subject, quote excerpts, and even write books. But a hobby is not always an obsession, which is when geeks become nerds.
Heidi! “Dutch” coloring?
Surely one would know that Spike and Suzy is a Belgian (Flemish) comics series.
Don’t sweat it: the series is only 60 years old and sells 200.000 copies per new issue.
Mario:
Sorry….the link mentioned the Netherlands so I leapt to a conclusion!
I’m not sure if I should be offended that comic books were not part of the Onion’s report. ;)