Cartoonists

Well this is pretty cool, and has flown mostly under the radar of my usual comics sites: Roz Chast has an exhibit up at the Museum of the City of New York. It runs from April 14th until October 9th, so you have plenty of time to go see it...and you should. Best known for her 2014 award winning 2014 memoir Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Chast's droll cartoons capture urban foibles of dread, fatalism and UES (upper East Side, to non New Yorkers) neuroses with a levity that barely masks how deep they cut. One of the exhibits mentions that one of her biggest influences was Charles Addams, and it easy to see how Addams' loose penwork and gallery of characters informs her work. She also shifted his emphasis on the lugubrious and horrific to internal anxieties over health, parental guidance, mid-life crises and geographic uncertainty.

The Beat sat down with cartoonist Sonny Liew to chat about The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye – hisvnew graphic novel recently published in the US discussing Singapore’s tumultuous history after WWII through the work of prolific Singaporean cartoonist Charlie Chan Hock Chye.

   Via this month's solicits. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Kyle a bit and interviewing him for an upcoming "More to come"...

  TCAF is coming down the pike, with dates of May 14th and 15th, and the guest list includes the usual bounty of international domestic...

As you may have noticed, female cartoonists are dominating sales charts (well graphic novel sales charts, anyway) and awards and current cartooning classes are anywhere from 50 to 75% female. It seems that a majority of the most notable "emerging cartoonists" are women, and a lot of folks have been joking that it's hard to find up and coming men in comics.

The great unsanctioned print crackdown we predicted a few weeks ago may be roaring down the highway. The following letter has been sent to...

Comics vet Robert V Conte writes to tell us about a unique course for young NYC area comics creators that offers $22,500 in scholarships....

Yesterday the great Al Jaffee turned 95. He's been contributing to Mad Magazine for a mere 61 years as the master of the "Fold-In," a few of which are presented below. Still active and charming as ever, Mr. Jaffee is one of the few people who can genuinely be said to speak with a "stentorian" presence, and I would just sit and listen to him read the phone book.

I believe this is the #1 feel good story of 2016 thus far. Rob Liefeld and Robert Kirkman have been pals for a while. They're often spotted plotting together at cons. They've even collaborated on a few comics, including Infinite for Image a few years ago. But this defines a new level of palship.: showing up on your bud's doorstep with a lifesize Deadpool statue.

Mobile comics platform LINE Webtoon is huge in Korea and getting bigger here, and they are no slouches in the diversity department. According to a release, 42% of LINE WEbstoon's creators are female, 48% of its comics feature female leads, and 50% of its over 6 million daily readers are women. Impressive, if not surprising statistics. And they'll discuss them more at a “Women in Digital Comics” panel to be held at SXSW on Friday, March 18^th. Participants include moderator Tom Akel, LINE Webtoon's director of content, and 2 Broke Girls’ star Beth Behrs (Dents), digital star Michelle Phan (Helios : Femina), LINE Webtoon creators Kaitlyn Narvaza (Where Tangents Meet, Siren’s Lament) and Susanna Nousiainen (ShootAround), and one of the winners of LINE Webtoon’s recent Superhero Comics Contest, Sandra Diaz (Supersonic Girl).

Abraham Riesman. New York magazines resident comics expert, has a long and long brewing profile of Stan Lee called Why Is Stan Lee’s Legacy...

Rokudenashiko (aka Megumi Igarashi) is a Japanese artist best known for creating a kayak that was based on a 3D scan of...an intimate part of her body. And she paddled around in it. Happily. The Japanese government was somehow offended by this and prosecuted her for obscenity—the trial has taken place and a verdict has not been rendered yet. Her memoir What Is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and Her Pussy, will be published this spring by Koyama Press, and she's coming to North America for a series of lectures and signings sponsored by arts organizations and free speech advocacy groups. And appearing at TCAF. So you will be able to hear all about her travels and canoeing*** in person.