§ It’s International Women’s Day so let’s kick things off with Nell Brinkley, the Jazz Age Great, and a drawing of a woman riding a giant lobster.
§ Comics writer Mags Vissagio (Kim & Kim) lost her day job suddenly, and has a shortfall while she seeks another gig. She has a YouCaring campaign up that already made its first goal, but there are worse things to do than throw a few bucks at someone who just hit a rough patch.
§ I guess Emerald City Comic Con 2017 really was the greatest con of all. Rob Salkowitz has a very enthusiastic write-up for ICV2: ECCC Sets High Standard for 2017 Con Season, stating that the show was huge mostly on the basis of comics and other quality content:
The conspicuous ReedPOP branding that you see at other cons like NYCC and C2E2 is largely absent from Emerald City. So are the obnoxious outside brands like Chevy, Verizon and GEICO Insurance, at least for the most part. It’s not a miniature NYCC or SDCC; it’s more like a much smaller show that happens to be really, really big. And ReedPOP seems to like it that way. “I think we learned more from ECCC than they learned from us,” said Armstrong. “We are trying to bring the innovations from this show to other shows in the ReedPOP portfolio. Our contribution was to help them grow more smoothly, since we are good at that. I think it ended up as the best of both worlds.” Based on the numbers and the nearly uniform praise that I heard from attendees, dealers, guests and artists, it sounds like they hit the mark. With ECCC 2017, they established the template for what a really big show can be putting content and comics first, without tipping completely over into a media- and autograph-driven event.
§ ECCC also had a lot of fantastic panel topics, as shown by this panel called To Preach Or Not To Preach? as written up at Comicon:
Rosenberg said that regarding working on Rocket Raccoon, the comic evolved into an allegory about refugees, persecution, and people not fitting in. He was seeing the footage of Syrian refugees, and it was too much to take. To do a goofy raccoon book is one thing, but the book is about taking care of people. It was about “be nice to each other”. Now it has an even wider message, but it was written about Obama’s stance on refugees, not actually Trump’s, which he sees as disturbingly similar. Turning our back on parts of the world because the people look different has been a problem for all the presidents, and America is selective in who it cares about, Rosenberg said. The book may feel overtly about Trump, but the book was pitched when Rosenberg thought Hillary was going to win the election. He assumes that if people are reading the book in future years, they’ll see it as relevant to President Kardashian or whoever is in the role then, he said.
§ And here’s a report on the Image Founders Panel, which turned into a roast of the absent Jim Lee.
§ But not all cons are as good! Here’s another “con artist” con, seemingly. It seems celeb guests did not get paid after appearing at the Brazos County Expo, in Texas. Slebs say they were given IOUs at the end of the show by the show runner, Ben Fritzsching of STX Events, LLC, but none of the money that was promised.
“She-Ra” Melody Britt was stuffed and has even taken to social media to complain, and as she wrote on FB in perhaps the greatest paragraph of all times:
You know, I’ve been trying to decide how I should talk about this, and even if I should mention it. But after time, and talking to Alan Oppenheimer (Skeletor) who will also speak about it, I realize I should talk about it, and especially because it affected not only me, but him as well.
If you can’t confide in Skeletor, who can you talk to?
§ In happier news, an update on Amalgam Comics & Coffee House in Philly:
Even in such a short time, Amalgam has gotten a reputation as a community space. I’m super excited about that! As a result, we have a lot of organizations that want to partner with us to provide different opportunities and services to residents in our community. The Health Insurance Enrollment Assistance events are a good example of that. We were approached to host the event, and we were more than happy to say yes. This event gives members of the community a chance to come in and have their health insurance questions answered by a professional enrollment assistant, and they will even enroll you in a plan.
§ This fellow looked at a single comics panel for 15 minutes and then wrote about what he found out. The panel was by Ben Sears, so some thoughts were gleaned.
§ Blastr tells us about Star Hawks, The Metabaron and 8 more must-read graphic novels for March |
§ Finally, R. Sikoryak’s Terms and Conditions is getting a lot of press, including this at Macworld.
What could finally convince you to read that dry, tedious text? How about pictures? That’s what you’ll find in Terms and Conditions ($15), an “unauthorized adaptation” out Tuesday from publisher Drawn & Quarterly. It takes the entire iTunes document (as of October 2015) and spreads it out across nearly 100 comic pages. And here’s the kicker: every single page pulls inspiration from a different comic artist and specific book/page, with a Steve Jobs-like character rendered in the style of everything from Superman and X-Men to Garfield and Scott Pilgrim.
