Kibbles ‘n’ Bits 11/21/13: We must all go to Columbus nowhttp://ift.tt/Ii3B7i

11 galleries robinson 650x485§ Bill Kartalopoulos went to the The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum opening and he thought it was pretty awesome.

Another major holding is the International Museum of Comic Art Collection, a large and diverse body of comics artwork and related materials in multiple formats and genres originally collected by Mort Walker for his former museum. Other holdings include the Jay Kennedy Collection (comprising more than 9,500 underground comix), the Bill Watterson Deposit Collection (including the entirety of Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes artwork), the Jeff Smith Deposit Collection (including the complete artwork for his Bone series) and the Dylan Williams Collection, named after the late cartoonist/publisher and dedicated to mini-comics and small press material (enhanced greatly by a large donation of material by comics critic and journalist Tom Spurgeon). In all, the Museum’s collection includes more than 300,000 pieces of artwork, 45,000 books, 67,000 serials, and 2.5 million newspaper clippings and pages, among other materials. This includes the largest collection of manga outside Japan, numbering more than 20,000 volumes.

In a later part of the review, there’s ths newsy nugget:

In a panel devoted to pedagogy, Center for Cartoon Studies founder James Sturm announced that his school had instituted a new track devoted to what he called “applied cartooning,” which he described as a concentration designed to serve applicants who wished to produce comics intended to inform, persuade and heal, or to facilitate work in other fields rather than stand alone on the basis of their artistic worth. Sturm revealed that a collaboration between the school and a nearby veterans’ hospital had already begun, introducing comics-based concepts and practice into therapies designed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Applied Comics” are a very important trend I expect to see a lot more of in coming months and years.

§ The New Republic’s Jed Perl went to the Art Spiegelman show at the Jewish Museum and did not think it was awesome. I saw the show at a preview and I might have more thoughts after a more leisurely viewing, but Spiegelman is clearly a conceptual artist in most cases. Anyway, I didn’t agree with this beatdown.

§ Rob Salkowitz examines the Fantagraphics Kickstarter and wonder if it presages Kickstarter 2.0.

§ GQ Magazine interviews Adrian Tomine, who reveals his party strategies among other things.

Adrian Tomine: If I had a good answer, then I don’t think these kinds of events would be so awkward for me! If I’m just at a regular party where I don’t know anyone, then I don’t really care and I can just lurk in the corner and enjoy my drink. But New Yorker parties are especially awkward for me because I recognize all kinds of great artists and writers whom I’d love to talk to, but I just don’t feel comfortable bothering them. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend my schtick of  repeatedly asking where the coat check is. It’s usually quite obvious where it is (near the door, generally), and people are made uncomfortable by such a stupid question.

§ Former Marvel PR maven James Viscardi has launched a podcast; first up, an indepth chat with Rick Remender.

3 905§ Zainab Akhtar has discovered cartoonist Jamie Coe.

§ HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Graphic Novels: Not just for kids

“At first I was surprised about ten years ago when they started getting really popular,” says Kotarski. “Now it makes sense to me. This generation has been using computers since they were babies; they often learned to read using video games like Reader Rabbit so they’re use to busy formats. Graphic novels aren’t as appealing tome because I like organization. But I read Maus and was moved to tears.”

§ Moving on to showbiz, remember when IDW opened a TV/entertainment division a few weeks back? Well now they are putting it to use by developing a TV show based on a comic by actor Michael Chiklis (the Thing, The Shield) which they published a few years back.

The actor/producer has teamed with IDW Entertainment, the recently launched TV division of IDW Publishing, to develop and produce Pantheon as a scripted live-action television series. IDW Entertainment will fund the development of the project, co-produced by Circle of Confusion, which is attached to oversee packaging and creative development for the new company. Created by Chiklis, Anny Simon Beck and Marc Andreyko, the 5-issue Pantheon comic book series is a dark and stylized story of ancient Greek gods returning to a ravaged, chaotic near-future Earth, where they battle for the fate of mankind.

That’s a pretty ambitious idea for a TV actor guy. Anyhoo, synergy in action, folks.

§ But then sometimes things don’t go so well, as with the languishing pilot for IDW’s Locke and Key. Writer Joe Hill is now the new hotness, developing a reboot of the horror anthology Tales From the Darkside. In a story about that he reveals some Hollywood shenanigans. Universal is now looking at a Locke and Key movie, but they fear that Fox will undercut them by releasing the pilot:

Explaining further, Hill added, “FOX wants to see some coin on all the money they sank into the pilot in the first place. The lawyers all have to validate their salaries. That said, Alex and Bob are the two most tenacious people I’ve ever met, and if anyone can see ‘Locke & Key’ through the contractual maze, and on into production, it’s them. Of course all this could’ve been avoided if FOX had just made the series. I know I’m biased, but I kinda think they bet on the wrong ponies that season.”

§ And in the department of Not Letting Things Go, director Frank Darabont termed the people who run the Walking Dead
‘Sociopaths’ for firing him after the first season.

“Oh god no, why would I,” he says. “If the woman you loved with all your heart left you for the Pilates instructor and just sent you an invitation to the wedding, would you go?”

He continues, “There’s a deep commitment and emotional investment that happens when you create something that is very near and dear to you, and when that is torn asunder by sociopaths who don’t give a shit about your feelings or the feelings of your cast and crew because they have their own reasons to screw everybody, that doesn’t feel good.”

Darabont must be comforted by having his own new series coming out, Mob City, starring Walking Dead alum/dead cast member, Jon Bernthal. Plus, the fourth season is going more in the direction Darabont originally planned, wth a wider view of the zombie holocaust and more personal stories. Finally, Darabont, lest we forget, can just bask in the glory of being Frank Darabont becuase, Shawshank Redemption.

#call_to_action h4{padding:0px 5px;}