Author: Elayne Riggs

For those who, like me, were disappointed that the Masters of American Comics art exhibition was fairly literal, in that all 15 of "the artists who shaped the development of the American comic strip and comic book during the past century" just happened to be white and male despite vast historical contributions to the artform by women and non-whites, you’re not alone, and Eye Trauma Comix is doing something about that.

Eye Trauma’s purpose is to "curate exhibitions which showcase in the gallery setting areas of sequential art that might otherwise be overlooked or underappreciated."  To that end, they’ve planned a two showings for this year and next.  From April 4 through 25, their exhibition Other Heroes: African American Comic Book Creators and Characters will showcase at Mississippi’s Jackson State University, featuring just about every major black American comics artist of note.

And in late 2008, they’ll be presenting Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics at the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  That exhibition plans to focus "on work by women and minority artists, experimental and small press comic creators, webcomics creators, and the contributions of comic book writers, inkers, colorists, and letterers," and will run from October 24, 2008 through the end of the year.

It’s great to see organizations step up to fill the gaping holes left by previous retrospective exhibitions, and even more hopeful to see this happening at the nation’s colleges, where the future of the comics industry is being cultivated.

For those New Yorkers who missed seeing Alison Bechdel at the New York Comic Con, she reports that she’s in town again today and tomorrow, appearing at National Book Critics Circle award events.  Her graphic novel Fun Home has been nominated for one of these awards, and Bechdel reports that "There’s a reading of all the finalists Wednesday evening at 6pm at The New School University, Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St.

"There’ll be some pretty fancy people there. A real literary smorgasbord. You should come! It’s free and open to the public. Then on Thursday the 8th, the award ceremony happens. That also appears to be free and open to the public, and also happens at 6pm at Tishman Auditorium. Though it probably won’t be as interesting as the reading."  More info on the NBCC site.

You’d think that, what with the Libby verdict and the ongoing Walter Reed scandal and the presidential campaign horse race in full swing a year and a half before the general elections, it wouldn’t be that slow a news day.

You’d be wrong.

Everybody who’s anybody in mainstream news out there in the Real World seems to have grabbed onto the "shocking event" that Marvel is planning to kill off Captain America.  Here’s the CNN take, complete with a tiny spoiler alert intro which appears about a half inch above the actual revelation.  There’s also a pretty thorough Q&A with Joe Quesada about comic character death.  Watch out, retailers — this could be the biggest thing to hit the "real" news world since… the death of Superman!