Friday, February 20, 2009

Jerry Dumas on the Lucca Festival


Comic strip cartoonist Jerry Dumas writes about bad comics (graphic novels) and good comics festivals (the Lucca Comics Festival) in an article in yesterday's Greenwich Time (yeah, it's singular; Greenwich Time not "Times") titled "When Cartoon Artists Had their Time In the Sun."

On THE BEST COMICS OF 2007 book:

"I glanced at was so abysmal that it made most cartoonists I know wince. It was all graphic novels, full of narcissistic meanderings and pathetic, amateurish artwork. The editor, in his introduction, acknowledged that most artists in the book were personal friends, and the title was, frankly, misleading. Thanks, and we knew that."


On the Lucca Comics & Games Festival (Google translated site link here):

"I was told that all I had to do was show some slides, give a speech, draw pictures at an easel and participate in a panel discussion. I gave the speech but did none of the rest. It turned out that there were too many participants and that many of them could do little or no participating. I heard about a bumpy meeting involving the American delegation and the Italian organizers.

"'You bring Americans over, pay their way, then you don't use them,' was the complaint.

"'Not enough time!" said the organizers. 'Let them just have fun in Italy -- meet, drink, laugh, talk.'

"The cartoonists were happy to oblige them."


Mr. Dumas, along with Mort Walker, produced the fan-favorite comic strip SAM'S STRIP. Fantagraphics has a wonderful preview of its forthcoming SAM'S STRIP collection here.

Hat tip to Comics Reporter.

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