Cartoonists

Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat has been picked by Time Magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people—along with folks like Lionel Messi, Rihanna and Pippa, but you get the picture. Ferzat made headlines when he was brutally beaten and his hands broken by the Bashar Assad regime he was criticizing—but he's still drawing, as new Pulitzer winner Matt Wuerker writes in the tribute:

Marvel/DC comic book artist Dave DeVries is being featured on CBS This Morning tomorrow at 8:45 am E.D.T. for his "The Monster Engine" work. If you're not familiar with this project, it's a thought provoking series of illustrations that takes children's drawings of monsters and paints them in a fully detailed fantasy art style. It's been spun off into books, gallery shows and more.

"Seth Kushner (The Brooklynites) has taken his skills as a photographer and his passion for comic books and turned them into two unique projects."

For the last few weeks an anonymous (but knowledgable) blogger has been picking apart each week's New Yorker cartoons for their humor and artwork content at the tumblr Sh*t My New Yorker. Delivering insightful analyses of punchlines and surprise, the identity of the blogger was much speculated upon in certain circles. Well, the blogger stands revealed:

Lynda Barry: Girlhood through the Looking Glass is a new scholarly look at the esteemed cartoonist's work, especially as it related to girlhood. Written by Susan E. Kirtley, the book is available now. With Barry'swork in a variety of mediums - comics novel sand stage -- widely acclaimed, , a dedicated look at her work is long overdue. It's part of UPM's Great Comics Artists Series.

Of all the new features of the revamped Comics Journal website, perhaps none is so awesome as the series of cartoonist diaries—from Brandon Graham to Emily Flake to Michael Deforge to Pascal Girard. It's a treasure trove of observations and art. But perhaps none will tug at the heart as much as this week's by Dylan Horrocks.

Recent interviews with a bunch of notable cartoonists reveals a treasure trove of advice on life and career.

The great and hilarious Emily Flake is doing a cartoonist's diary for TCJ, and the first episode includes much on the Freelancer's Dilemma (pants or no pants) as well as scenes where the cartoonist works on New Yorker submissions at the laundromat while hoping a little girl will come throw her giraffe at her. Yes, it's like that. BOOKMARK!

We've been meaning to write up the disgusting legal maneuver that has left 69-year-old Gary Friedrich owing Marvel $17,000 after a failed attempt to get some ownership of Ghost Rider, a character he co-created back in the '70s. In a story first reported here by Torsten, Marvel/Disney filed a countersuit for copyright infringement based on Friedrich's convention appearances selling Ghost Rider-related merchandise. As Daniel Best wrote:

Read it all here.

Given that she was the Person of the Year for 2011, and enjoyed a bestseller with her Hark! A Vagrant collection, it's no surprise that Kate Beaton has been getting lots of offers lately, ranging from children's books to television work. Thus it will also come as no surprise that she's going to be spending less time on her webcomics to work on some of these opportunities:

Soon after posting yesterday's fret fest over the state of the cartoonist, we had to hurry off to the world premiere of JOANN SFAR: DRAWING FROM LIFE, a documentary by Sam Ball about the French comics superstar. A mellow, thoughtful 46 minute film, it captures Sfar a few years ago when THE RABBI'S CAT was on its way to selling 600,000 copies in France and his work was being published here in the US by First Second...but BEFORE he became more renowned in his homeland for directing.