RHYMES WITH ORANGE Guest Cartoonist is Suzy Becker

Above: a cartoon by Suzy Becker from her Web site.

Hilary Price's newspaper comic strip RHYMES WITH ORANGE will have guest cartoonist Suzy Becker slaving away for a week beginning this Monday while Hilary takes a break. Or rather, she all ready took a break and Suzy filled in and we're only now seeing the event.

Here's Hilary:

"Four weeks ago, I went on vacation for a friend's 40th birthday. While I was basking in the shade lathered in 70 spf sunscreen (we redheads have to be careful), my talented cartoonist pal Suzy Becker took over the strip for the week. Her work will start this coming Monday."

Related: Hilary and Dave SPEEDBUMP Coverly will be have a table at MoCCA Fest this weekend.

Marek Bennett May Be Coming to Your Town!

Fellow New Hampshire cartoonist/educator Marek Bennett is going to be doing a lot this summer. Below is his press release. (Image from his "What We Do" blog entry.)

ARTIST-EDUCATOR MAREK BENNETT BRINGS COMICS TO CONVENTIONS AND CLASSROOMS

"Mimi's Doughnuts" Creator Releases New Comics and Music

Henniker, New Hampshire -- New Hampshire cartoonist and educator Marek Bennett has three new comics appearing this month, along with a convention appearance in New York City and an end-of-the-year school program in New Hampshire.

On June 7-8, Bennett will release issue #15 of his quarterly all-ages comics publication, Mimi's Doughnuts Zine, at the MoCCA Art Festival in New York City. Also launching at this year's MoCCA Art Festival are two anthologies bearing comics by Bennett:

Secrets and Lies, an anthology edited by webcomics artist Cayetano Garza, centered around the comics community of White River Junction's Center for Cartoon Studies.

Swingin' Hits, an anthology of original comics by creators in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Western Massachusetts, published by Trees and Hills Comics Group. The anthology's theme is "music", and it forms the centerpiece to Trees and Hills' "Spring Thaw" Tour. Bennett and other comics artists contributed original music to the anthology's soundtrack CD.

The annual festival, hosted by the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art, celebrates independent comics publishers and small-press artists from around the world.

Following these releases, Bennett will lead a Comics Workshop in Marlow, NH, guiding elementary students in creating comics about influential teachers in their lives. The workshop is part of a retirement ceremony for veteran teachers in the school system.

Since 2002, Bennett has led summetime and school-year "Comics Workshop" education programs, teaching students of all ages how to harness the unlimited power of comics as an expressive and affordable medium for imaginative storytelling. This summer he will lead "Comics Camp" programs at several New Hampshire sites. He has taught at the Hopkinton Independent School since 2004, where he teaches Spanish, music, and middle school science. He recently received grant funding from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and AutoDesk Corporation to conduct a bilingual original comics exchange between school children in Henniker, NH, and San Ramon, Nicaragua in 2008-2009.

Bennett's comic, "Mimi's Doughnuts," is a weekly self-syndicated comic strip telling the story of a group of step-siblings growing up in a small-town family-run doughnut shop in the fictional town of Claymont, New Hampshire. Mimi's Doughnuts Zine is available by mail-order subscription; order individual copies and subscriptions online at: www.marekbennett.com.

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MoCCA Fest 2007 UPDATED

On Sunday morning, my neighbor and great cartoonist Trade Loeffler and I boarded the F train to the MoCCA Fest.


The show was on the first floor and the 7th floor. Here's a shot of the 7th floor, with its big windows. The whole show felt just as big as previous years, but less crowded since there was more square footage.

Over the weekend, there were continuous talks over at the Museum itself. Here's a close up of Craig Yoe (with a McCay editorial cartoon behind him) giving a Sunday afternoon presentation.

Mike Lynch, Joe Staton

Joe's a veteran comic book artist. He and Nick Cuti created a comic book character called E-MAN in the 1970s for Charlton Comics. Charlton was one of the smallest comic book companies around, and E-MAN ran for a scant 10 issues, leaving the comic book spinner rack 2 years after its 1973 debut. Regardless, the character is fondly remembered and resurfaced over the decades from other comic book companies, pretty much all the time with Joe & Nick at the helm. Joe mentioned that there is going to be a big reprint project.


Doug Bratton strikes a Lou Ferrigno pose at his table.


My friends Ali Solomon and Derek Mainhart show us their pearlies.


This is what you see at a typical MoCCA seller's table: comics for sale, an art pen and then a sketchbook full of doodling (in this case, it's Ali's). And right across the way was the NBM/Papercutz table where I snagged a freshly printed copy of FOREVER NUTS CLASSIC SCREWBALL STRIPS: THE EARLY YEARS OF MUTT & JEFF by Bud Fisher.


A couple of cool business cards. Godfrey Chan boldly shows us his elementary school photo on his card. Joda Thayer, Godfrey's MoCCA Fest table-mate, opts for the more trad approach.


People came from all over. Here's Toronto couple Tyrone McCarthy and Alana Machnicki. Their table held, on one side, her illustrations/prints, and, on the other, his Corduroy High School comics. I got one from each so there would be no squabbling between these fine young kids.


Not every artist paid for a table in the Puck building. This fellow set up on Houston Street, on the block between the subway and the MoCCA Fest.


Some of my swag.



And here's Marek Bennett's t-shirt. Well, ha ha, not HIS per se -- a shirt that I bought from him.

What a nice sentiment, Marek!

Some more MoCCA 2007 photos at these sites:

• The Beat: Photo Parade Day 1 and Day 2
• Craig Yoe's MoCCA Mug Shots
• Rocketship has Day One and Day Two
• AdHouse Books has a Flickr collection here
• Manual Comics has a mountain of photos
• Mike Dawson shares his photos
• Chris Mautner at Newsarama has the Mocca Photo Parade

UPDATE: Tom Spurgeon over at Comics Reporter has the motherload of all photo links here.

Press Release: "Salicrup's Section" at MoCCA

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy! Below is from Jim Salicrup's MySpace blog:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MUSEUM OF COMIC AND CARTOON ART (MoCCA) CELEBRATES SALICRUP THIS MAY

NEW YORK (April 19, 2007) – The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) today announced that it was beginning preparations for the opening of "Salicrup's Section," an exhibit that will celebrate the long and varied career of comic book writer and editor Jim Salicrup.

The exhibit, which opens on May 4th, 2007 as part of the New York Artist showcase, will be curated by Matthew Murray, MoCCA's Managing Director and the lead curator behind MoCCA's recent featured exhibit, "Saturday Morning: Art and Artifacts from a Golden Age of Television" which closed on April 16, 2007 after being extended due to popular demand..

In 1972, James A. Salicrup, then a 15 year-old high school student began a career at Marvel Comics in a position that would now be referred to as "an intern." In his twenty year stint at "The House of Ideas," Salicrup carved out a unique career and worked on the company's flagship books throughout the 1980s becoming an architect of the "Bronze" and "Iron" ages of super-hero comics. His achievement as the editor of the best-selling Spider-Man comicbook of all time was recently recognized in the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records.

Salicrup left Marvel in the early 1990s to become the editor-in-chief of Topps Comics, later he became a writer and senior editor at Stan Lee Media, and he currently is the editor-in-chief of Papercutz, a company that specializes in producing graphic novels for all ages.

In his 35 years on the comics scene Salicrup has worked with a pantheon of industry greats. The list includes not only his own heroes such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas and Steve Ditko, but current industry giants whose career "Slim Jim" helped foster such as Kyle Baker, Kurt Busiek, Fred Hembeck, and Todd McFarlane.

Salicrup, himself, is an occasional artist, who can often be found selling his self-professsed "lousy sketches" on the comic convention circuit while promoting his new titles and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – an organization of which he is a trustee.

"Salicrup's Section" will be on display throughout the summer, with a private invitation-only reception to be held to honor the creator. The Museum is currently seeking monetary donations to help support the mounting and marketing of the exhibit.

(Above: Jim Salicrup and Stan Lee)

Puck & MoCCA Fest

"What fools these mortals be!" -- from the masthead of Puck magazine

The MoCCA Fest is traditionally held in the Puck building.

Bohemian sculptor Carl Buberl is the guy who did the statues of Puck on the Puck Building. He was Bohemian by way of actually coming from Bohemia, like my great grandfather. Of the 2 statues, one appears to be looking at himself, and the other is aiming his mirror toward the sidewalk. The Puck Building was best known as the home of Puck magazine. Joseph Keppler, a star illustrator at Frank Leslie's Illustrated News, started the magazine in 1876. It was in German the first year. The following year the magazine went to both German and English editions. Color cartoons figured on the front page and the centerfold. Specializing in political and social cartoons, the weekly 10 cent,16 page paper was selling a constant 80,000 copies a week.

I post this since I have got a cold this weekend and had nothing to add about MoCCA Fest. This is the first time I've missed it, darn it!