§ Michael C. Lorah conducts a bilingual interview with David B. about his recently released compendium of menacing dreams, NOCTURNAL CONSPIRACIES.
§ Esther Keller has discovered something that she was not meant to find out: WIMPY KID books are NOT graphic novels…so why are they always topping the GN bestseller lists?
When my students are crazed for books, it’s hard not to be overjoyed. Anything that keeps the kids reading! But I’ve been bothered lately that Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid is being called a comic or a graphic novel. It’s not. I even sat at work today, reading the third installment to prove myself wrong, but instead, I became even more convinced that this is a regular old book which is illustration with (hilarious) cartoons.
Now that Esther Keller has uncovered this age-old conspiracy, she must seek the truth, and seek the code. Can she do it in time?
§ Diana Schutz talks about editing with CBR:
“Generally, I’ve always felt that my job is to help the creator realize his or her vision to the utmost degree: that means working with both the creator and the other departments at Dark Horse–in terms of design, production, printing, marketing–to create the most favorable publishing environment possible for the work. That means not only managing the project but also overseeing quality at each and every stage of production, at the creator’s end and at the publishing end. So, no matter whether it’s script or pages of art coming from the cartoonist, or whether it’s a design for a title page coming from our production department, my job is to make sure it’s as good as it can possibly be. **And** on deadline!”
§ Comics have made it into the Louvre! What’s next? Comics on the moon????
§ Teen who has already created five comic books and 20 comic strips now menacing airline passengers:
“One of my favorite places to sell my comics is on airplanes, because you have some time to talk and get to know people,” Jake says. “I think it also helps that I have so many freckles. People like that.”
§ LA Times reviewer has comics’ number all right:
Oh, I know Iron Man and Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk are all actually culturally significant metaphors for the eternal battle of the ego and the id, or the natural world and the industrial, or the spiritual and the physical. And I know we don’t call them comic books anymore, we call them graphic novels. Comic-Con is bigger than Cannes. Whatever.
The point is that “Wolverine and the X-Men” premieres on Nickelodeon tonight at 8 and it’s good to see a cartoon that remembers what cartoons are supposed to do. Zap, slime and blow things up. It’s almost heartwarming to see feature characters who speak in short declarative sentences that you can usually predict two beats beforehand, and who generally save the world.
Way-ull…. the Louvre exhibition is of the comics IT commissioned. They selected four creative teams, and gave them carte blanche (tabula rasa for you classicists) to create a comicbook about the Louvre.
So, yes, it’s rather cool, but not what it could be.
(“The Museum Vaults” and “Glacial Period” can be previewed at NBM.
http://www.nbmpub.com/comicslit/museum/pre1.html
As for the moon…
Lunar Module Four, nicknamed “Snoopy”, was part of Apollo 10. The ascent stage is the only Apollo ascent stage still intact, as it is in a heliocentric orbit. The descent stage is assumed to have crashed onto the lunar surface, but it’s final disposition is unknown. The “Charlie Brown” command module currently resides in London. Snoopy was also the official mascot of aerospace safety following the disastrous Apollo I fire.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/snoopy.html
Do the plaques on the Pioneer probes count as comics?
I have half a mind to ask the LA Times music reviewer that I know to pass a message to the TV reviewer that we actually do call them comic books. But somehow I don’t think that would help.
The LA Times review shows why, IMO, Willingham, Quesada, and others often, if not always, aim public comments on comics at people who believe that superhero comics are written for kids. McNamara probably isn’t atypical in seeing the cartoon, seeing the merchandising of the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Hulk, et al., and feeling that such characters should be written for and programmed for kids only. If she’s not familiar with the characters, formats, etc, telling the “for kids” and “for adults” versions of the characters apart, wondering just how “adult” the adult versions are, and preventing kids from reading stories with the adult versions would be annoying.
SRS
Also – the Hulk Vs. Wolverine & Hulk DVD that comes out next week has some kind of tie to the new X-Men series –
of which my 11 year old niece is tivoing for me at this very moment because my satelite at home doesn’t carry Nicktoons.
~
Coat
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