CITY OF GLASS: REGLAZED
Paul Karasik reveals via e-mail the impending re-publication of "Paul Auster's City of Glass." "The comics adaptation of Paul Auster's postmodern noir novel, 'City of Glass,' will be reprinted in July 2004 by Picador," writes Karasik. The graphic novel, co-adapted into comics form by Karasik and David Mazzuchelli, originally saw print in 1994 as part of Avon Books' short-lived "Neon Lit" line of graphic noir adaptations. "Collaborators, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, have created a new cover for this edition which will also feature a new introduction by Art Spiegelman," Karasik further notes.
LINK: Picador USA
posted by Egon on Saturday, December 06, 2003

ART AS COMICS
Donald Kuspit's lengthy analysis of Philip Guston's work on Artnet draws an explicit connection between Guston and Robert Crumb, contrasting Guston's influences with Roy Lichtenstein's. "Crumb was an avant-garde counterculture comic strip artist, with a strong pornographic and morbid streak, while Lichtenstein's models were safely bourgeois. Crumb was much more mad than anything in Mad Magazine, and Lichtenstein was much more respectable than anything in the Sunday comics." Meanwhile, Christopher Benfey surveys recent exhibition catalogues for the New York Times, including short reviews of books on Leonardo Da Vinci, Guston, and Hokusai. Benfey notes Da Vinci's tendency to use "drawn frames and borders within his drawings as a way to compress and contain his 'brainstorming'" as well as the "nearly cinematic sequence" in some of the artist's sketchbook drawings.
INFO: Artnet
INFO: The New York Times
posted by Egon on Saturday, December 06, 2003

TARDI, ON TIME
Time Magazine's online comics columnist Andrew Arnold reviews Jacques Tardi's "The Bloody Streets of Paris," a Nestor Burma mystery based upon work by Leo Malet and recently published in English by iBooks. "Though it originally appeared in the mid-80s, this first of five Tardi/Malet books is the only one to have yet appeared in English," Arnold explains. "Why the French take seriously what we throw away — detective pictures and comix among other things — remains anybody's guess. Just be glad that they do."
INFO: Time
posted by Egon on Saturday, December 06, 2003

REED GRAPHICA TO LAUNCH
Calvin Reid discusses the new "Reed Graphica" graphic novel publishing imprint — for which he will serve as Consulting Editor — in an interview with Silver Bullet Comic Books. The imprint debuts this month with new editions of Jack Jackson's "Comanche Moon" and David Chelsea's "David Chelsea in Love." "I wanted our initial list to emphasize quality nonfiction because Reed Business information, our parent company, does a lot of business with the library market and the overall Reed Press list is nonfiction," said Reid. Planned upcoming releases include "The Collected Epoxy" by John Pham, "Silly Daddy" by Joe Chiapetta and "a new edition of James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook's Seven Miles a Second." Reid, long responsible for comics coverage in "Publishers Weekly," describes measures taken to avoid any possible conflicts of interest: "I've had discussions with Jeff Zaleski, the editor of PW Forecasts, the book review dept at PW... Reed Graphica comics will be handled by another editor in the Forecasts department. I will have nothing to do with them and the reviews will run in the magazine, praise or pan... The books I publish can hold their own in the court of literary opinion."
INFO: Silver Bullet Comic Books
INFO: Reed Graphica
posted by Egon on Friday, December 05, 2003

IN THE SALON WITH SACCO
Salon.com interviews Joe Sacco about "The Fixer: A Story From Sarajevo." Among other topics, Sacco discusses the value of his graphic reportage. "You get the essence of a place. You get the essence of the truth. A photograph will show you literally what is happening in front of the lens. (Of course with Photoshop you never really know.) With comics, I'm trying to establish a mood or an atmosphere of what a place is like. Let's say I'm walking down the street. I can draw mud in every single frame, so the mud is following the reader around, just like I'm walking through it." Sacco asserts the urgent need for this perspective: "What is decided in Washington, D.C., when George Bush lifts his little finger -- someone around the world is going to feel it. To me it seems almost criminal that the people who live here, who elect someone like that -- if they really knew how other people's lives are affected by American policies, maybe they would pay more attention. It's appalling the amount of ignorance here about world events."
INFO: Salon.com
posted by Egon on Friday, December 05, 2003

KEEP ON TALKIN'
The latest installment of the Comics Journal's online audio archive features an hour of excerpts from Gary Groth's 1988 interview with Robert Crumb. "Crumb discusses the legal fiasco over 'Keep On Truckin',' his IRS nightmare, the Cheap Suit Serenaders, how fame has impacted his life, his development as a cartoonist, and much more." The audio files will be available online until January 2, 2004.
INFO: The Comics Journal
posted by Egon on Friday, December 05, 2003

SCHIZO LOOMS LARGE
Solicitation copy for Schizo #4 is reproduced online by 86th Floor comics, describing the upcoming issue's format and contents. Schizo #4, due in February 2004, will be printed in full-color in an 11" x 15" format. "This time around, Brunetti taps into his academic side with biographies of Piet Mondrian, Soren Kierkegaard, Erik Satie, James Thurber, Francoise Hardy, Louise Brooks, and J.K. Huysmans." Additional contents include "tributes to Charles Schulz and the Marx Brothers; a step-by-step guide on how to draw cartoons; and strips on misogyny, 9-11, suicidal ideation [and] abortive crushes on waitresses." The 32-page issue will cost $9.95.
INFO: 86th Floor Comics
posted by Egon on Friday, December 05, 2003

KIERSH SPILLS REDDINGK
Dave Kiersh is the latest cartoonist to contribute a weekly strip to Jordan Crane's "Reddingk" website, Crane announced in a post to the Comics Journal's message board. Kiersh's strip is scheduled to run regularly on Tuesdays.
INFO: Reddingk
INFO: The Comics Journal
posted by Egon on Friday, December 05, 2003

FELLINI'S CARTOON ART
New York Newsday covers "Fellini!", an exhibit featuring Federico Fellini's caricatures and cartoons currently running at the Guggenheim Museum. "Fellini always used caricatures and cartoon sketches — not story boards — to develop his characters and fine-tune his sets. He looked at his films as the extensions of his drawings and decided they would take on a life of their own." The exhibit "features everything from caricatures of actors to graphic novels derived from failed film projects. The drawings, photographs and personal journals help illustrate the director's mastery of developing characters through visual art." According to the museum's website, the show also includes the director's "early caricatures of Hollywood film stars created for the Fulgor cinema in his boyhood home of Rimini, Italy," as well as cartoons drawn for Italian periodical publications. "Fellini!" runs at the Guggenheim through January 14, 2004.
INFO: New York Newsday
INFO: The Guggenheim
posted by Egon on Monday, December 01, 2003

ACBD NOMINATIONS
The Association des Critiques et Journalistes de Bandes Dessinées (ACBD), France's professional association of comics critics and journalists, has announced five nominees for the organization's annual prize, as reported by BDNews.net and numerous other websites. This year's nominees are:
"L'ascension du Haut Mal" Vol. 6, by David B. (L'Association)
"Le combat ordinaire" by Manu Larcenet (Dargaud)
"Le photographe" Vol. 1 by Emmanuel Guibert and Didier Lefèvre (Dupuis)
"Là-bas" by Tronchet and Anne Sibran (Dupuis)
"La grippe Coloniale" Vol. 1 by Serge Huo-Chao-Si and Appolo (Vents d'Ouest)
In previous years, the ACBD prize had been given at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême. This year's Festival president Jean-Marc Thévenet recently announced that only official festival prizes would be awarded in association with the event. This year's ACBD prize winner will be named on December 9, 2003. Nominees for the "Prix d'Angoulême" awards (formerly the Alph-Art awards) will be announced on that same day.
INFO: BDNews
posted by Egon on Monday, December 01, 2003

PLATINUM AGE WEBCOMICS
The latest Coconino Webdo includes among its offerings "Pantomime," an 1849 picture story by Alfred Crowquill. The sequential, captioned narrative, with varying panel widths, was "re-printed in the Picture Magazine in 1893," according to Thierry Smolderen's announcement to the Platinum Age Comics mailing list. The Webdo also runs Puck Magazine cartoons by F. B. Opper, as well as contemporary content. Meanwhile, John Adcock announced a website called "Karikatur" to the Platinum Age Comics list. Karikatur hosts artwork by Wilhelm Busch, Rodolphe Töppfer and others, "scanned From Eduard Fuchs Die Karicatur Der Europaischen Bolter ; 1903."
INFO: Coconino World
INFO: Karikatur
posted by Egon on Monday, December 01, 2003

FROM GAZA TO PORTLAND
The Portland Tribune talks with Joe Sacco about his work process, his favorite area haunts and his next book, about the history of Gaza. "I like Gaza. I like the people," Sacco tells the paper. "You don't have this middle-class moaning that you hear in Ramallah and east Jerusalem from Palestinians. These people are refugees. They've got something to moan about." Sacco discusses the need for visual accuracy in his work: "I want someone from Gaza to say, 'Those are the cars we drive; those are the donkey carts... I want authenticity in the drawings, not just the words."
INFO: The Portland Tribune
posted by Egon on Monday, December 01, 2003