Kibbles ‘n’ Bits

On Jan. 31, Harvey’s opera, “Leave Me Alone” makes its world debut at Oberlin College, just a 45-minute drive from Cleveland, Ohio. And as Pekar might say, if you can’t make it, don’t sweat it. The production will be broadcast live to an international audience at www.LeaveMeAloneOpera.com For those who can make it to the 8:00PM premiere, it’s free.

To be perfectly clear, “Leave Me Alone” is not an opera in the classic connotation of the word. It’s being called a “Jazz opera,” which means it can be pretty much whatever Pekar wants it to be. Pekar wrote the libretto (that’s the text of an opera, kids) and framed the whole presentation into a storyline. The music was written by jazz saxophonist Dan Plonsey, of the San Francisco area. Another San Franciscan, Josh Smith, is the music director, and music students from internationally renowned Oberlin College will perform and sing.

Naturally, she finds increasingly difficult material to make into movies, then does her best to help steer it to the screen. And her current pet project is “Cancer Vixen: A True Story,” Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s humorously serious depiction of how the C-word knocked her out of her Carrie Bradshaw fantasy and into reality.

“Yes, it’s a comic novel, which I’m hoping will come up,” enthused Blanchett, who hopes to someday play the part of Marchetto in a feature film based on her graphic novel. “It’s a really unique book.”

So are parents such as Judy Tygard of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., whose son Jack, 10, was a reluctant reader, a label used by teachers for students who would rather do most anything other than sit still and read.

Then he discovered Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

“It is truly the first time where I couldn’t get Jack to stop reading,” his mother says. “He stayed up late. He couldn’t wait to continue reading. It really showed him he could love books.”

Jack says he read the first book in three days, the second in one day. (Each is 217 pages.) He likes their “kid’s view of how annoying it can be to have an older sibling and how to survive in school. And they’re really funny.”

So, that said, leave it to a college professor to research the link between today’s contemporary graphic novel and books from medieval times. CU-Boulder’s William Kuskin, whose expertise in literary history covers both ends of the timeline, has done just that, pointing out that both genres were designed to make the written word accessible to everyone, and both combine words and art.

Q: Is the use of animation a reflection of the trend in graphic novels?

A: This film is going to appear as a graphic novel [in February] here in the US. Graphic novels are very very popular in Europe, mainly in France. And i think this film was influenced more by graphic novels than by other films.