Tag: Cartoonists

I've mentioned Lala Albert here before but she continues to fascinate with her disturbing but compelling mythology of three eyed women. Much concerned with myth and alien life, her work can be seen in...

Women's History month is wrapping up, but we at The Beat don't feel we celebrated it properly, so for the next 24 hours most of the Beat staff is collaborating on "24 Hours of Women Cartoonists" to spotlight some of our favorite creators.

Cartoonist Nate Powell (left) along with Rep. John Lewis and writer Andrew Aydin—all collaborators on the upcoming graphic novel March—walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma AL, March 2013, where in 1965 600 marchers protesting for civil rights, among them Lewis, were tear gassed and beaten with clubs by police.

The 90-year-old creator of NonNonBa, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, and such yokai masterpieces as GeGeGe no chows down with relish. As recounted in the semi-autobiographical Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, Mizuki lost an...

Feeling adventurous I journeyed out to an unfamiliar part of Bushwick last night for an opening night party for the new issue of World War 3 Illustrated. Founded in 1980, this comics magazine has been charting politics, struggle, and social causes around the world for more than 30 years. The latest issue's theme is "The Other," surely a propitious one. I've yet to read the whole issue but the parts presented last night were quite striking.

STRIP SEARCH, the reality show about a house full of cartoonists competing for $15K and a year of "being embedded" at Penny Arcade, debuted earlier this week. You can watch the first episode above and the second episode is now up as well. The show is produced by the Penny Arcade crew, with Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins as judges. (They ran a half million dollar Kickstarter to fund the show last year) 12 cartoonists -- six male, six female, are flown to a house in Seattle to compete for the prize, in the classic format. The 12, chosen from a thousand entrants, are mostly webcomickers, but more on that in a bit.

Following yesterday's much quoted post on wanting to be hired, artist Jerry Ordway responded to the outpouring of support with more on the perils of exclusives and the freelancers life:

It's a Monday early in the month, you just paid the rent and you're now wondering how you are going to live on celery for the next 27 days—that must be why so many posts on how to make a living at this here thing are coming out today. We've already seen Jerry Ordway plead to be taken seriously as a creator. But it's not just the old paper and ink crowd that's fretting this day. The webcomickers are at it too.

The gravy train usually has a very short ride.

Miriam Katin is hitting the road with LETTING IT GO , her memoir about coming to terms with her son's move to Germany and her memories of the Holocaust.

The Chicago Weekly profiles cartoonists cartoonist Ivan Brunetti, who talks candidly about his teaching, low comics output of late, depression, and home town. Perhaps best known for his Fantagraphics collection Misery Loves Comedy, Brunetti is a much respected foundational indie cartoonist. His two comics anthologies from Yale Press —Graphic Fiction and Grahpic Fiction Volume II -- are also just about the best introductions to literary and art comics of recent years.

Indie and Disney master Don Rosa has posted online the final chapter of a bio intended for a collected edition of his works. after it was rejected by Disney. Rosa explains his decision to retire from drawing comics last year as the result of both the psychological effects years of working, his failing eyesight, and some ongoing difficulties with how Disney deals with it's comics licenses. It's an entertaining read -- especially for ow his early years intersected with those of his hero, Disney artist supreme Carl Barks, but it's also not hard to see why Disney may not have been thrilled to publish it.