Interviews

My—hopefully—last post on Before Watchmen and Alan Moore and the role of the comics creators.

The date was December 9th, 2011 when cartoonist and Center for Cartoon Studies professor Alec Longstreth shaved off his beard and shaggy do. A promise to himself in 2008, he decided to chart his progress through pictures of his hair and beard growth that would undoubtedly remind him daily of his commitment. Living in a small town with a beard as his shadow, Longstreth went from industrious Fellow of the school to an instructor of both summer workshops and graduate classes to the Acting Director (while James Sturm takes a much-needed sabbatical) . Even after all the excitement, he is still growing and evolving, deciding to learn watercolor on the side. Venture on to read more about the amazing cartoonist Alec Longstreth.

Unsurprisingly, after his public statement on not working with DC over their ethical practices towards creators yesterday, it turns out Chris Roberson's arc on FAIREST, the FABLES spin-off, will not get written.

Yesterday Batman artist Cameron Stewart tweeted about a particularly awful "job" offer; we put job in scare quotes because "job" usually implies something you get paid for.

As was widely noted yesterday, writer Chris Roberson tweeted the end of his working relationship with DC Comics:

Once again, Dean Haspiel blogs about the difficulties faced by freelancers in the current event/editorially-driven superhero world in a piece plaintively called Make Mine Me:

[Although one of the best selling comics authors of the past decade, Brian K. Vaughan keeps a low profile—you won't find him writing in his blog or posting previews on his social media platform of choice. He also tends to take big breaks from the comics format to concentrate on his high profile film and TV work. But that was until this week's debut issue of SAGA came out. Already creating buzz and selling out, the collaboration with Fiona Staples is one of a several prominent new comics this year featuring creators moving from the Big Two to the creator-owned experience. And Vaughan has been making the interview and show rounds because that's how you sell comics in this day and age. He might not even need it. The early reviews are stunningly positive. This interview was conducted a few months ago, just as the book was being solicited, and since we hadn't talked in a while, it was a chance to catch up on a few other matters, as you'll see.]