Congratulations to Aaron McGruder and company for garnering Peabody award for the Boondocks cartoon episode "The Return of the King!" The awards committee calls this "An especially daring episode" which "imagines Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reviving from a 32-year ‘coma’ and outraging Americans of all colors and creeds by confronting them with truths that he, at least, still holds to be self-evident."
The full list of 66th Annual Peabody Award recipients can be found here.
Via Budgie, for your reading pleasure comes this post by artist Jesse Hamm on the ways in which writers drive him crazy, followed by a three part rebuttal by Mark Waid on why certain artists should perhaps choose their words as carefully as they choose their illustrations. Beyond the sarcasm and vitriol is some terrific information and useful advice on the collaborative process in comics.
As many readers doubtless know by now, my father recently died due to injuries he sustained in a car crash. Dad always said that Las Vegas drivers were the most dangerous in the country, and he was right. While I’d be happy to talk about Dad at length in person, I won’t take up ComicMix space by expounding on anything at length here. It’s all been too draining.
I’ve just returned to the outside world from a week spent with my mom and youngest brother at his home in NJ (not far from where Dad is buried), engaged in the Jewish tradition of "sitting shiva" where friends and relatives visit to pay their respects and remember the lost loved one.
One of those visitors was my remarkable childhood friend Rachael, whom I discuss at greater length in my personal blog. Rachael’s sharp recollection of our bygone play days highlighted my mounting frustration at a condition I’ve been noticing for awhile now — my fading memory.
My uncle analogizes what’s happening to a locked file cabinet for which I’ve misplaced the key, and I agree. The memories are stored in my brain somewhere, I’ve just temporarily lost the ability to access them. And so I’ve learned workarounds.
Take pop culture, for instance. Unless I keep meticulous records of the comics I read (which I did during my Usenet days when I reviewed lots of books each week), I don’t vote in any annual polls of the year’s best. We received our Harvey Awards nomination ballot in the mail today, which went right into the circular file. It’s not that I didn’t want to nominate folks, and it’s certainly not that there weren’t any outstanding comics and tremendous talents around last year. It’s that I wouldn’t be able to call any to my brain; nothing sticks with me. Which doesn’t really bother me — it’s not that important that I retain fiction in my head, because it still exists independently of my mind in an accessible, tangible form. I can always pick up an old book or rewatch a DVD, and if by some chance I make the time to re-experience any bit of fiction, I’ll be delighted by the details all over again.
When you go to a comic con, it’s always a good idea to have a gimmick or two – some unique stamp that distinguishes you from other fans, makes you easy to remember, etc. For Laura Gjovaag, one of her best hallmarks (aside from her sparkling personality) is Torvald the Troll. You can read about Torvald’s origin here.
Laura was very busy taking Torvald around to, and snapping photos of him with, various comic pros and movie stars attending the Emerald City Comicon this past weekend. The great thing about these photos is how posing with Torvald often brings out the personality of the person in the shot. At right is Laura’s photo of Torvald and Margot Kidder.
You can read Part 1 of Laura’s Emerald City con report here.
Over 3000 readers of the UK-based SFX magazine have chosen their Top Ten all-time classic science fiction movies and, in a surprise to many, Joss Whedon’s Serenity has knocked George Lucas’ Star Wars off its reigning pedestal, garnering 61% of the vote to SW’s 28%. The poll results were met with much skepticism in the comments section of the news item, which did not specify what controls were in place to prevent vote tampering.
Also out of the UK, The Shiznit has announced its picks for Top Ten movie monkeys. As with comics, there must be a school of thought in movieland that says you can’t go wrong with an ape on the poster.
There are two crossovers between the two lists (there might have been more if anyone had voted Raiders of the Lost Ark or King Kong into the Top 10 sf movies), and one amusing choice on the second list which isn’t an ape or a monkey.
Thanks for continued forbearance whilst we ready our comments section and your news editor gets back up to speed.
To see what I’ve been doing this afternoon, hie thee over to the 12th Carnival of Feminist SF and Fantasy Fans, presented as an Iron Chef homage because my brain is fried.
The Carnival of Feminist SF and Fantasy Fans was begun by feminist comics blogger extraordinaire Lisa Fortuner, who is doubtless now seeking someone to host lucky #13.
I’m back, and on a personal note I would like to thank everyone for their very kind wishes and condolences on the death of my father, more about which on Wednesday if I can manage to make Dad the focus of my next column.
In the meantime, things here seem a bit — different, don’t they? So let’s get caught up first before we jump into the newer stuff. Here’s your one-click guide to the regular columns and podcasts from the past two weeks. First the columns:
Flip through our pages for the past couple weeks to check out contributions from Martha, Robert, Kai, Matt and others in our extended ComicMix family! And I hope that you’re as eager as I am to catch up on all our podcasts as Mellifluous Mike Raub marches on:
There you go, lots of reading and listening — and all fodder for much commentary from you, we hope! Feel free to let fly in our brand-new comments section below, coming shortly!
Marvel fans clamoring for the return of Captain America should be careful what they wish for.
On the heels of the recent brouhaha over the just-cancelled My Sweet Lord art exhibit, which proved too much for the delicate sensibilities of a kook who likes to rile his kook-troops to harass my friends until they resign from their jobs, artist Cosimo Cavallaro has signed a deal with Marvel Entertainment to recast the mold for his Christ figure (see right) adding Steve Rogers’ familiar costume and shield (which will be temporarily on loan from its current owner, Stephen Colbert), and readying it for display in the lobby of Marvel’s offices at 417 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan through April.
"The fans have spoken," said Marvel EIC Joe Quesada, "and what they clearly want is the return of Cap. And chocolate. Mmm, chocolate," he added in a wistful Homer Simpson voice.
Cavallaro (no relation to DC editor Joey Cavalieri or The Three Caballeros) is known for past artistic expressions using food, including repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying five tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home, and festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham. The unveiling of Chocolate Cap will not be catered.
For the lucky ones who will be watching the Doctor Who season opener soon – and for those who think Daleks make for lovely bric-a-brac – here’s some things to do around the home on a rainy day, courtesy (again) from our friends at Bibi’s Box!
From time to time this blog receives visits of people searching for Daleks. Those incredible extraterrestrial mutant creatures from Doctor Who series are much more popular that I imagined. The first time I made a post about the Daleks I had no idea that it wouldn’t be enough to cover it. Then, a while after, I saw a very nice tutorial of How to Make a Dalek and IR Control Daleks.
Of course that wasn’t enough. Every time there are new stuff about them: crochet and more crochet Daleks (via Quiddity), Dalek cakes and many other kind of related Dalek stuff that fans collect. For fans it’s never enough. And to keep you busy for a while, here is a list of tutorials to you make your own Dalek. Chose the material and start working:
We’d like to bring your attention to this fascinating comics event, courtesy of the Bibi’s Box website:
The on-line exhibition from the Bibliotèque nationale de France Comics Before Comics (La BD avant la BD) presents precious panorama of the comics beginning. The visual travel begins with the ancient illustrated bibles made for Kings and the aristocracy’s books, inquires about its style origins, it shows the story of narrative, the page layout procedures and it ends with the use of sound in images – dialogues and onomatopoeia.
The exhibition gives a short vision of the comics pre-history, using great examples, like the Bible of Stephen Harding, Danse macabre, Cantigas de santa Maria, Histoire de la fondation de l’ordre cartusien and Little Sammy Sneeze by Winsor McCay, among the several other examples. For a fast visual panorama try iconography page.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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