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Happy Birthday: Graham Ingels

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1915, Graham Ingels began work early, joining the work force at 14, shortly after his father died. At 16 he began doing art jobs. He married at 20 and entered the Navy at 27 in 1943. After WWII, Ingels worked for Fiction House, Magazine Enterprises, and several other comic book and pulp magazine publishers.

In 1948, he began drawing Western and romance stories at EC Comics. He switched to the horror line—Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt of Fear—as soon as they began and was quickly dubbed “Ghastly Graham Ingels” for his facility with the genre. By 1952, Ingels was even signing his work as “Ghastly.”

After the horror line was canceled in the early 1950s, Ingels contributed to other EC lines, and then did some work for Classics Illustrated after EC folded in the mid-1950s.

He later taught art in Westport, Connecticut, and then became an art instructor in Florida. Ingels died in 1991.

 

The Art of Harvey Comics Exhibit Announced

Later this month, Richie Rich, Casper the Ghost and the rest of the Harvey Comics crew will be the focus of a new exhibit in San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum.

According to Diamond’s industry news site, Scoop:

Beginning June 28, 2008 and running through November 30, the Cartoon Art Museum will host “Harvey Comics: From Richie Rich to Wendy the Witch: The Art of Harvey Comics,” an exhibit celebrating the art and characters including Casper, The Friendly Ghost; Wendy, The Good Little Witch; Richie Rich, The Poor Little Rich Boy; Hot Stuff, The Little Devil; Sad Sack; Joe Palooka; Little Dot; Little Audrey; Little Lotta, and many more. Original art from various Harvey comic books and merchandise by the likes of Warren Kremer and Steve Muffatti, who together defined the Harvey “look,” will be on display along with artwork by Ernie Colón, Sid Couchey, Howard Post, Fred Rhoads, Ham Fisher, Dom Sileo, Marty Taras, and many more.

There would seem to be a lot for Harvey Comics fans to like about this exhibit, but let’s hope they gloss over the ’90s film adaptations of Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost. shudder

J.K. Rowling’s Harvard Commencement Address

The most recent class of Harvard University graduates were ushered out of their college years by none other than Harry Potter novelist J.K. Rowling this week, who gave a commencement speech titled "The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination."

The Harvard University Gazette has published a full transcript of the speech, which includes the following thoughts on failure and how it relates to some of the graduates she addressed:

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Rowling also received an honorary doctor of letters degree from the university.

 

(via Pop Candy)

Me, Come MoCCA – by Martha Thomases

I like New York in June. How about you?

There’s all the hippie, flower-child kinds of reasons. The days are warm; the nights are cool. The leaves provide dense shade, like stained glass windows from a Tiffany dream. The humidity is low, so the garbage isn’t baking on the sidewalks. Nature is reborn. It feels good to have a body.

There are also the 21st Century Geek Squad reasons. Free music in the parks. The summer movie season is at full throttle. The big cross-over events in comics are up and running, and, even when I don’t like them, they make the comic shops fun to be in on Wednesdays (fanboy fight!). Network TV is all reruns, but the cable networks bring in new stuff. The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a show on superhero costumes.

Best of all, there’s MoCCA.

More precisely, the Art Festival sponsored by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Usually held on the last weekend in June, this year, instead, it’s being held on the first. Today and tomorrow.

Now, if you’re a regular reader of these columns, you may have noticed that my tastes run to the pop. I like my comics fantastic. True, I also enjoy believable characterizations and witty dialogue, but mostly, I look to comics for escapism. Any coincidental addition of artistic merit to my entertainment is a bonus. (more…)

Webcomic News Roundup: MoCCA, Silly Sketches and Somber Tales

I’ve spent most of the day looking over MoCCA Art Festival schedules and guest lists for this weekend, so it’s been a light one here at ComicMix. Before I slide back into MoCCA madness, here are some short bursts of info and links from the webcomics scene that I’ve been meaning to share.

Yesterday, Diesel Sweeties creator Rich Stevens ended "two years of procrastinating" by announcing the launch of online tee shirt store teeshirtparty.com. Simply put, the store will feature "our favorite tee shirts designed by independent artists and bloggers." Go ahead and give it a look.

On a side note, I would also like to point out that, out of the five artists currently associated with Tee Shirt Party, ComicMix has already interviewed (or is in the process of interviewing) four of ’em. Expect to hear from me soon, John.

In his first of two mentions in this roundup, Fleen’s Gary Tyrrell sparked an interesting comment-thread debate when he posted his thoughts on Hero By Night creator DJ Coffman’s parting of ways with Platinum Studios. (more…)

The Religious Implications of ‘Doctor Who’

Various news sites are reporting that church leaders in England are studying the "religious parallels" between the BBC television series Doctor Who and certain themes of Christianity.

According to Telegraph:

They have been urged to use examples from the programme in their sermons in an attempt to make Christianity more relevant to teenagers.

At a conference last week, vicars watched Doctor Who clips that were said to illustrate themes of resurrection, redemption and evil.

It analysed the similarities between the Doctor and Christ, and whether daleks are capable of change.

The reports mention a few other examples, including The Doctor’s time-travelling TARDIS as a representation of a church and, as Wired blog "The Underwire" pointed out, they both appear in Christmas specials. 

Marvel’s Top 10 Hulk Villains, More ‘Incredible Hulk’ Video

As part of "Hulk Month" on Marvel.com, the publisher’s online crew recently put together a list of the Top 10 villains to test the Green Goliath’s mettle throughout the character’s long history.

While I disagree with the assertion by Marvel.com’s "spy on the wall" blogger Agent M that the publisher does Top 10 lists "better than other feeble comic sites," I did enjoy this list of Hulk villains. If nothing else, it reaffirmed my belief that the Jade Giant (yes, I’m trying to use every possible nickname for Hulk in this article) has one of the most bizarre rogue’s galleries  in comics.

Case in point: Bi-Beast

"You know the old saying, ‘two heads are better than one’? Nowhere is that more true than in the case of Bi-Beast. With one head containing knowledge of warfare and combat, and another head containing knowledge of history and culture—stacked on top of a body containing immense power—this android packs a formidable one-two punch. Though defeated by Hulk time and again, he remains one of the Hulk’s toughest sparring partners to date."

(more…)

bloody20bess20website20art-2634988

John Ostrander’s ‘Bloody Bess’ Retakes The Stage

bloody20bess20website20art-2634988Way back in the dark ages, Stuart Gordon directed a play for his Organic Theater written by ComicMix’s own John Ostrander and our pal William J. Norris called Bloody Bess. It starred Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna and Meshach Taylor along with writer Norris – writer Ostrander was pressed into service once when he wasn’t performing at the Goodman Theater with Del Close. The play was about this lady pirate’s revenge on her kidnappers and had lots of swashbuckling and mystery and terror. I saw it only about nine times.

It toured all over the world, but eventually, like all stage plays, it faded. And like all good stage plays, Bloody Bess is making its triumphant return.

Between June 13 and July 20, Chicago’s BackStage Theater Company will be presenting Bloody Bess at The Storefront Theatre Gallery 37, 66 East Randolph Street, downtown near Lake Mighigan. It stars Eva Swan, Ron Kuzava and Scott Graham. They work on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and on Sundays at 3 pm.

Hmmm… This will be going on during Wizard World Chicago. If you’re around, check it out. 

New ‘Prince Valiant’ and ‘Wash Tubbs/Captain Easy’ Reprints From Fantagraphics

In one item of news coming out of last weekend’s Book Expo America, publisher Fantagraphics will be offering new reprints of long-running comic strips Prince Valiant and both Wash Tubbs and its successor, Captain Easy.

According to iCv2:

Prince Valiant will be presented in an oversized color hardcover format, with two years per book, beginning in 2009.  This presentation will be of higher quality than the 50 trade paperbacks Fantagraphics published, which collected all of the strips with art or story by creator Hal Foster.  At two years per book, it will take 16-17 volumes just to reprint the full page strips with Foster art. 

As for the Roy Crane-created series Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy, which Fantagraphics will begin reprinting in 2009:

Sundays will be printed in color; dailies in black and white.  Although the two strips ran an incredible 64 years, from 1924 to 1988, creator Roy Crane’s work ran only until 1943.  NBM released an 18-volume series collecting the Crane years from 1987 to 1992.

Manga Friday: Korean Road Trip!

The two books this week are actually manwha rather than manga, since they come from Korea and not Japan. Other than the reading direction, both of these books are more similar to their Japanese counterparts than to American comics, which I will demonstrate, viz:

Croquis Pop, Vol. 1
Story by KwangHyun Seo; Art by JinHo Ko
Yen Press, June 2008, $10.99

Da-Il is a young man who either wants to be a manwha artist more than anything in the world — because he told his now-dead mother that the only thing he wanted to do with his life was to make pictures that made her happy — or he fell into the job as a high school student because making comics "looked like fun." Or maybe both, since the story tells us both things and gives us no reason to disbelieve either of them.

Da-Il has just come to work for the manwha-ga Ho Go, who has just moved into a big house with his two other assistants, the punctilious senior assistant Ho-Suk Yang and the gorgeous and mysterious Hang-Chu. (Either in Korea in general, or just in this kind of manwha story, the staff of a particular story live with their boss.) But the hiring procedures are a bit lax, since Da-Il can barely draw. (more…)

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