Ice Storm 2008

I had no idea how big the ice storm was until we got the power back about 30 minutes ago. The NY Times says 1.25 million from PA to ME without power!

Here are some photos from our place along the Maine/NH border:


Here's the back of the car and a bunch of ice-laden birches, laying over the long driveway. Those little snowflakey looking things are bits of sleet. It sleeted all night and into the day.




It's a long, long driveway.


A shadowy landscape of ice on the front yard.


Birdfeeder icicles.


For many trees, the weight of the ice made them bow down.


Our 3 raised beds and the trees all leaning over.


A windowbox perched on one of the raised beds, with one of the bowed trees hanging over it.






A series of shots of the driveway, and the trees leaning over it.


At the end of the driveway: a fallen pine tree.


Thank goodness for the woodstove! There is one pot of sauerkraut and one pot of tea warming.

Forgotten TV Christmas Specials

Here are 3 TV specials from 1969 to 1977 that I don't see listed in the regular holiday line up.

There are a number of Holiday TV specials that I remember that seem to have disappeared. It's hard to believe that any TV show can disappear what with all those cable channels, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I think these specials are pretty much gone from the broadcast & cable spectrum:

THE HOMECOMING - with Patricia Neal, Richard Thomas and Edgar Bergen. This 1971 TV movie was the pilot for the series THE WALTONS. Based on North Carolina TV writer Earl Hamner's book of the same name, he narrates the story of his Father missing on Christmas Eve. The movie has the requisite good and not so good child actors, and there are different actors as some of the Walton adults (with Patricia Neal doing a fine, very fierce Eugene O'Neill take on Mrs. Walton, as opposed to Michael Learned's mellower characterization). I got a kick out of Edgar bergen listening to Fibber McGee in one scene.

Maybe the movie is too much of a downer. These are poor people who can't afford anything and the reason Dad is missing is because he has to commute many miles to where the jobs are. Downtown Walton's Mountain has no industry.

Below is part 1 of 10 of the TV movie, which includes location shots in Jackson, Wyoming, standing in for Walton's Mountain. Here are links to part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine and part ten.



THE LITTLEST ANGEL - with Johnny Whitaker, Fred Gwynne and E.G. Marshall as God. This was a real star-studded (Cab Calloway, Tony Randall, John McGiver, George Rose, Connie Stevens, James Coco) 90 minute live action program, taped (yes, it's on videotape) at the height of Johnny Whitaker's child star power. This was a major production at the time, even though the money was not spent on film or decent quality effects. There was even an album released. Yes, Herman Munster sings on it! But I digress ....

SPOILERS for THE LITTLEST ANGEL follow after the clip.

Below is a 4 minute clip from the show where all the angels are lining up to give presents to God in a badly chroma-keyed version of heaven.




My opinion: The reason for this special not being aired today (although you can get it on DVD) is for one scene where Johnny Whitaker, who fell off a cliff chasing a white dove and died, returns home in ghost/angel form and tries to hug his mom. Now, no one knows he is dead yet and his Mom can't see him. It's all very nightmarish, with little Johnny crying, and Mom not hearing him because, you know, the kid's DEAD and all. (I looked for this clip, but did not find it.) At the end, when greedy God has all of his presents (see the clip above), there's Whitaker, staring happily at the dove; a happy, dead kid whose now-grieving Mom is down on Earth. Not the stuff of cheery TV specials that inspire one to go buy Chinese crap at Walmart.


A COSMIC CHRISTMAS - a 1977 special, inspired in equal parts by the Bible and STAR WARS. With pretty darn gorgeous animation & character design by Canadian animation studio Nelvana, this 22 minute prime time special caught the attention of George Lucas, who worked with the company on several STAR WARS projects, including the now-unseen STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL (except online and its many bootleg copies).



COSMIC CHRISTMAS has some hammy dialogue. The aliens land and ask, What is Christmas? What is Bethlehem? All of the adults are pretty corrupt and disgusting. Some of the animation and little character moments seem like a nod to Bakshi's best work (this is a good thing). All of this is fine with me. Above is the entire special, which is unavailable on DVD.

Like I said, please feel free to correct me if these are on TV this year. Or if you have your own missing holiday specials to add.

NSNC Alters Its Bylaws to Welcome Freelancers

Above: a snapshot of today's National Society of Newspaper Columnists home page.

From Editor & Publisher:

"The board of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, in a meeting Tuesday evening, amended the organization's bylaws to include as regular members freelancers, self-syndicated or independent writers, or writers published on the Internet in any medium as online columnists or in blogs."

Video: Shaun Tan THE LOST THING

Above: a screenshot from the video of Shaun Tan's studio.

Even if you do not know who Shaun Tan is, please take a look at inFrame.TV's 5 minute documentary on Mr. Tan and his work on animating his book THE LOST THING.

I forget how much I admire his work, and enjoyed seeing him for the first time on video. The short animation looks like a labor of love. I agree with him regarding creativity: it's a difficult process.

A big hat tip to Journalista!

uclick Hopes to Roll Out Hundreds of Comics for iPhone

Above: image from uClick's home page today.

Here's an article by Heidi MacDonald from the December 8th edition of Publishers Weekly about putting comics on the iPhone.

"Each issue of a comic costs just $0.99, although eventually longer stories may have higher price points. The uclick store already carries titles from IDW (the just announced The Thief of by Always by Clive Barker), Image (Elephant Men and Godland), Papercutz and Mirage, as well as comic strips—Pibgorn—and self published titles—Jeff Smith's Bone. By next year uclick hope to have hundred of new comics available on iTunes, says CEO Douglas Edwards, and creating original content is not out of the question."

Hat tip to Comics Reporter.

Regardless of recent graphic novels sales declining, newspapers folding -- people still love comics. But will they pay for this kind of content on the iPhone?

Andrews McMeel Holiday Sale thru December 19th

Prominent cartoon book publishers Andrews McMeel (CUL DE SAC, BABY BLUES, PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, LIO, need I go on?) announced they will offer 35% off all items at their site plus free shipping. More here.

We realize the importance of family and friends this time of year and would like to thank you for all of your support. Begin your holiday shopping at andrewsmcmeel.com and get 35% off your purchase and free shipping on all items on the site from now until December 19th. Simply enter the code AMUDiscount in the Coupon or Gift Card entry field when you are ready to check out.

New Mike Lynch Cartoons Santa Mug

Mugs are $4 off until 11:59pm PST tonight over at the Mike Lynch Cartoons Zazzle Store.

The fine print:

$4 discount applies to orders of one or more qualifying mug items. The coupon code MUGSONZAZZLE must be entered during checkout to receive the offer. Offer is valid from December 9, 2008 through December 9, 2008 at 11:59pm PST. Your order must be placed during that time to qualify for this special promotional pricing offer. This promotional offer may not be combined with any other Zazzle promotional or discount offers.

Above: the penguin loves bowling pin mug, and, below, the Santa mug.

The Kid on Mall Santa's Lap mug is brand new as of today.

Save the Words

Above: a screen capture at the site.

Save the Words. Worth clicking on. Worth letting it load. I'll say no more.

Except: hat tip to Ralf Zeigermann!

Video: COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL Kurtzman, Stan Lee

Here's a clip from the documentary COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL, now 20 years old, with Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Gaines and Stan Lee.



Veoh has the whole documentary, you can find it via ugoq's channel on YouTube.

Bob Staake: Best Cover of the Year

Above: Bob Staake's New Yorker cover.

Time Magazine names Bob Staake's November 17, 2008 New Yorker cover as the "Best Cover of the Year" in its Top 10 Everything of 2008 list.

Congratulations, Bob!

More about the cover, including video, here.

Sixth Finger Commercial

Above: What TV is all about, from MAD Magazine's on-the-mark "Howdy Dooit" parody by Kurtzman & Elder. Image pulled from the Gatochy Blog's Will Elder tribute, wherein you may read the entire parody and more.

I remember wanting some odd things that TV told me to buy when I was a kid, but I had never been exposed to the commercial below. I can't imagine desiring a little peach colored piece of plastic generating such passion.

But, hey, in the 1960s, there wasn't as much going on. At least not in Iowa ....



Unrelated, of course, that OUTER LIMITS episode.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Auction

If you ever wanted your own life-size Cylon Raider ship, now's your chance. Bidding begins next month in a BATTLESTAR GALACTICA auction! All news here.

The final BSG season begins January 16th.

Hat tip to Trekmovie!

When Was This NANCY Strip Published?

Mark Newgarden & Paul Karasik need to know.

Read all about it here.

Forrest J. Ackerman Passes Away at 92

Forrest J. Ackerman passed away peacefully at his home (the "Ackermansion") in Los Angeles on Thursday. He was 92.

From the AP story:

His greatest achievement, however, was likely discovering Bradbury, author of the literary classics "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles." Ackerman had placed a flyer in a Los Angeles bookstore for a science-fiction club he was founding and a teenage Bradbury showed up.

One of those kids who also showed up was my Dad, who was -- and still is -- a science fiction fan.

Alternately referred to as EEEE, Forrest DeJacques Erman, 4E, -- Ackerman was, from all the descriptions I've heard, a jack of all trades, whose legacy may not only be discovering Ray Bradbury, but also publishing Famous Monsters of Filmland for many years.

Dennis Cozzalio at his Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has a wonderful tribute, complete with home movies of his visit to the Ackermansion.

Hat tip to Sean Kelly. Thanks, Sean. Scan of FM cover from Dennis Cozzalio's site.

Northern New England Cartoonists Holiday Party December 6, 2008

When I lived in Brooklyn, NY, I was spoiled. There were cartoonists in every borough, as well as New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island ....

I found out was that there are many cartoonists here in the northeastern US. The comics community is very active, despite the cold and snow! And so I thought I would put together a gathering of cartoonists. I picked out the restaurant, priced the menu and spread the word.

I hope that those who were able to attend enjoyed the event.


Above: a card that I drew up for holiday party goody bad insertion.

This past Saturday, on a cold and cloudy New England afternoon, about 20 cartoonists and their friends and loved ones got together at a local pub for the first Northern New England Cartoonists Holiday Party in Rochester, NH.




Above: Rochester Times News Editor John Nolan (who was named "Columnist of the Year" by the New Hampshire Press Association last month) chats with Peter Noonan, THE HIPPO newspaper's resident cartoonist. Peter drew the cover of this week's edition of THE HIPPO.

Above: some sketches from the participants of the party.

About 90 minutes into the party, Peter, having eaten his appetizers, salad, Irish stew & dessert, announced to the room at large that he wanted to draw. A piece of Bristol Board and a Pigma Micron pen was produced. Peter is "still working on his Obama" caricature. He drew Obama, as well as a little guy pulling Obama's ear. He began drawing our State governor John Lynch (no relation), and someone started talking about Jimmy Carter, causing the pen to move in Jimmy Carter lines rather than John Lynch lines.



Above: journalist Amy Miller, gag cartoonist for Playboy and The New Yorker Bill Woodman, cartoonist John Klossner, Mike Lynch, NON SEQUITOR cartoonist and children's book creator Wiley Miller.

Amy & John, Bill and Wiley all drove in from Maine to be with us.

Above: a sketch by Wiley Miller, drawn at the party.

Wiley, John and Bill talked about all those last minute cartoonists; guys who, through the years, have flown last minute flights to the syndicates (this is back in pre-Internet days), inking on the plane; arriving at the syndicate, still inking in the lobby. I remembered a story that Jack Davis told about his wife Deena driving Jack into NYC, with Jack in the back seat, furiously erasing his pencils from his Mad Magazine originals, minutes before deadline.


Above: The couple behind the syndicated OFF THE MARK newspaper cartoon panel Lynn (the brains) & Mark Parisi (the funny).

I was talking to Mark Parisi about Christmas cartoon gags. I'm bad about Christmas. New gag ideas are hard to come by and I groan just thinking about even trying to come up with anything new. How many times do we see a cartoon with Rudolph getting his red nose from his drinking problem or Santa's elves threatening to unionize and go on strike and so on. Having to be fresh all the time is the challenge of a good cartoonist.


Above: Brian Cogdanone of Corbett Features, John Bradley, Patricia Hurd listen to Mark Parisi. Not in the shot, but at the table there out of range: Barry Corbett (also of Corbett Features, natch!) & cartoonist/author Peaco Todd.

Barry and Brian pointed out that under the clear plastic table pads were that day's newspaper funnies section. Mel Flanagan's Pub put them there just for us. Very nice of them! Barry and Brian went around before people got seated, reading all of them. Once a funnies fan, always a funnies fan.




Above: the New Hampshire contingent (minus me, of course): THE HIPPO newspaper's cartoonist Peter Noonan, Marek Bennett of MIMI'S DONUTS, SIX CHIX and FAIR GAME syndicated cartoonist Stephanie Piro and Denise Bennett.

Marek was awarded the prestigious Xeric Award this past Spring, which is why he looks happy. Either that, or Stephanie is pinching him.


Above: Juana Medina, RISD design major who won the first King Features' Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship this year, Mike Lynch and Stephanie Piro. Juana and her friend Pablo drove all the way from Providence, RI to be part of the evening. She's a terrific cartoonist.

Above: a cartoon of Little Red Riding Hood naively walking to grandma's house, drawn by Juana Medina. Since we are all wearing red in the above photo, her drawing of LRR came to mind.

By the way, the Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship is accepting submissions for 2009. Deadline is February 6.

Special "above and beyond the call" big XXL thanks to cartoonists Mark Anderson, Marek Bennett, Brian Cogdanone, Barry Corbett, Wiley Miller, Stephanie Piro, John Nolan, and Mark Parisi for contributing their own mini-comics, books, calendars, buttons, newspapers and cards to the holiday goody bag. Everyone who attended was able to take home a wonderful bag of cartoony goodness thanks to your generosity.

Video: Brian Duffy on His Unceremonious Firing

Des Moines Register editoral cartoonist Brian Duffy was fired from the paper on Wednesday. The Register's cartoonist since 1983, Duffy was part of a large number of cuts by Gannett. Here's a video from local WHO-TV. It's about 3 and 1/2 minutes:



Hat tip to Rob Tornoe via Daryl Cagle.

James Stevenson

I don't know why, but James Stevenson's NT Times series of Op Art pieces, titled "Lost and Found New York," seem to fly below the radar. He's done the same sort of work for The New Yorker. I never hear anyone talking about them and haven't run across a blog about them.

I love stumbling across his occasional piece of historical nonfiction in a weekend edition of the paper. Here's his latest, Ice King, about a Bath, ME born financial titan/corrupt businessman Charles Wyman Morse. In sketchbook style, Stevenson lays out the financial successes and immoral excesses of a a guy who went to NYC, had it all, made millions, and what it all meant. It takes a couple of minutes to read.

I like how hand-drawn and and-lettered the piece is. It is like looking at Stevenson's Moleskine. Sadly, there are no hyperlinks at the Times to his other "Op Art" items. This is a shame. They're all good non-fiction cartooning.

An Internship with MAD's Tom Richmond

Ever wanted to be a cartoonist? Ever wanted to draw for MAD MAGAZINE? A high school student named Luke got a chance to "job shadow" Tom Richmond in his studio.

"My niece Brittanie called me up and said she had a classmate who was an aspiring artist and wondered if he could job shadow me one day… like TOMORROW. I was trying to beat a deadline on a MAD job and was on the final stretch of the inking, so I thought that would work out well. The next day a young man named Luke showed up at the studio and spent about 4 hours watching me ink while we chatted about freelance illustration, cartooning, caricature, MAD and in general what it’s like to try and make a living with a pencil and a drawing board."

Tom reports all here.

If I was in high school, this would be absolutely the coolest day of my life.

Scott Wegener Interview

Fellow New Hampshire cartoonist Scott Wegener, who draws the Atomic Robo series of comic books, is interviewed by Dave Eisenstadter in the Monadnock (NH) Ledger-Transcript. Scott talks about working with writer Brian Clevinger, and the team of 4 people who produce Atomic Robo.

"'I can't write my way out of a paper bag as far as dialogue goes,' Wegener said. 'We're comfortable enough with one another to trust that each of us has our best interests in mind, so it works out really well.'

"Wegener and Clevinger work closely, but not close together. Clevinger lives in Orlando, Fla. Rhonda Pattison, their colorist, lives in Canada and Jeff Powell, their letterer and logo designer, lives in Brooklyn."

Above image pulled from Scott's site. A tip o' the hat to Dirk Deppey at Journalista! for this.

Willard Mullin

Cartoon Snap shows a variety of scans by sports cartoonist Willard Mullin. Mullin is one of those guys that was forgotten, and now, thanks to bloggers and fans, is getting his due as one of the best cartoonists around. Look at the life in those inky lines.

I want to hat tip someone but I forgot where I first saw the link.

Roy Doty's Christmas Cards 1950-2007

Courtesy of Hogan's Alley comes this gorgeous online gallery of cartoonist Roy Doty's perconal Christmas greeting cards through the years.

"When I did my first card in l946, the year I started freelancing in New York, all the artists did their own cards at Christmas. It was a tradition to do so. Over the years fewer and fewer cartoonist do them, though there has been more of them lately now that they can print them out from their computers."

Hat tip to Steve Smallwood!

Christoph Neimann: Coffee

I always enjoy Christoph Neimann's work. Today: his story of his relationship with coffee from today's NY Times.

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE Swipe at Cartoonists

Above: an excerpt from the Sunday PEARLS BEFORE SWINE.

Sunday's PEARLS BEFORE SWINE takes a swipe at veteran cartoonists, demanding that there be "no more gags from 1952!"

Cartoonist Stephan Pastis (who is also a lawyer, so I have to watch what I type now) has made fun of cartoonists and their strips before. I agree with the beseeching donkey that cartoonists should be relevant. Of all the comic strips in the Sunday paper, I read very few now. But it's the same way with TV: 200 channels and I (like most people) watch only a couple.

Hat tip to some guy named Stephan Pastis.

Above: from his NCS profile page.

Shatner's RAW NERVE

William Shatner's new talk show RAW NERVE begins tonight, with 2 of the half-hour programs back to back. First, he interviews 70s sitcom girl/21st century weight-loss diva Valerie Bertinelli and then, Tim Allen, who played a swaggering, overbearing spaceship captain in the GALAXY QUEST movie. There are clips at the above link, which I have not looked at. I have no idea what to expect.

Related: Trekmovie has renamed this month Shatember. Shatner talks about RAW NERVE here and even more (Takei, Abrams, etc.) here.

Orphan Works: A Lame Duck Countdown Part 2

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: A Lame Duck Countdown: Part II. The Legislative Blueprint 12.02.08 The "legislative blueprint" for the Orphan Works Act was not drafted by the Copyright Office after their year-long Orphan Works study, but before it, by law students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. Their Copyright Clearance Initiative (CCI) is the document that first proposed the "limitation on remedies" that would radically change international copyright law. From page 5 of the CCI proposal: "Under no circumstances will Sec. 504(c) statutory damages, attorney's fees, damages based on the user's profits or injunctive relief relating to the challenged use be available against a qualified user." http://copyright.gov/orphan/comments/OW0595-Glushko-Samuelson.pdf This is the premise the Copyright Office adopted with only slight modifications: where the law students had proposed capping infringement fees at $100, the Copyright Office proposals changed that to an ambiguous "reasonable fee." And how did the student authors describe their study of the orphan works issue? "On April 11, 2003, the Clinic held a symposium with scholars, academics and other interested parties to discuss this issue. Since then, the work of CCI has focused its efforts on devising the blueprint for a legislative solution to the 'orphan works' problem...and has been in close contact with various non-profit organizations, intellectual practitioners and academics..." A footnote names the eight "clinic students" who contributed to the "legislative solution." And among the "interested parties," the authors cite Public Knowledge, a group now actively promoting the Orphan works bill. Copyright holders were apparently not considered interested parties, as none are listed among those invited to participate. The Clinic authors submitted their blueprint to the Copyright Office March 24, 2005. They cited no effort to survey the potential impact of their legislative solution on commercial markets - nor did the Copyright Office three years later, when they adopted the "limitation on remedies" and proposed it to Congress in their 2006 Report on Orphan Works. The Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Law Clinic is a long-standing critic of existing copyright protections. In 1994, legal scholar Peter Jaszi wrote that in the new "information environment" created by the internet, authors, artists and others "may not need the long, intense protection afforded by conventional copyright -- no matter how much they would like to have it." Copyright, he wrote, is rooted in outdated concepts of "possessive individualism." The "romantic myth of authorship," he argued, is a vestige of the 18th and 19th centuries "in which entrepreneurial publishers...[and] entrepreneurial writers...played out their shared conviction that the "individual [is] essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities -- and thus of whatever can be made of them." Professor Jaszi has criticized the US for joining the international Berne Copyright Convention, calling it "an international agreement grounded in thoroughly Romantic assumptions about creativity." And he noted with disapproval: "The first Act of this preeminent 'authors' rights' treaty in 1886 represented the culmination of a process which got underway in the mid-nineteenth-century with Victor Hugo's vigorous campaign for the rights of European writers and artists. Other famous 'authors' rallied to the cause: Gerhard Joseph suggests that the manic energy with which Charles Dickens championed international copyright stemmed from the novelist's private insecurities about his own 'originality.'"* Note the scare quotes around "authors rights" and "originality." The Professor appears to subscribe to the postmodern cliché that all art is a form of collage and that authorship and originality are merely covers for one writers "vigor" or another's "manic energy" and "insecurities." Maybe so, but a working author might guess that Dickens and Hugo were merely protecting their copyrights because that's how they made a living. Citing the authority of postmodern critics, Professor Jaszi laments that their "critique of authorship" "has gone unheard by intellectual property lawyers." "However enthusiastically legal scholars may have thrown themselves into 'deconstructing' other bodies of legal doctrine, copyright has remained untouched by the implications of the Derridean proposition that the inherent instability of meaning derives not from authorial subjectivity but from intertextuality. Above all, the questions posed by Michel Foucault in 'What Is an Author?' about the causes and consequences of the persistent, overdetermined power of the author construct -- with their immediate significance for law -- have gone largely unattended by theorists of copyright law, to say nothing of practitioners or, most critically, judges and legislators." -Page 12 The Construction of Authorship* Or to put it in plain English: why hasn't Congress harkened to some collectivist literary critics and written their debatable theories into US copyright law? With the Orphan Works bill, maybe they will. Yet if this were one's goal - to impose a collectivist agenda on US copyright law, wouldn't forthrightness be the better policy? Shouldn't you say "we want to change the laws governing a citizen's ownership of his or her intellectual property" - then present the case frankly and debate it publicly and transparently? Wouldn't that serve the public interest better than concealing the agenda behind a claim that you're only amending the law to "find homes for the poor orphan works" or making the world safe for folks to duplicate pictures of grandma? Tomorrow: How many letters did it take to trigger the Orphan Works Bill? Would you believe 215? *Quotes from the Introduction to The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature by Martha Woodmansee, Peter Jaszi, Editors, Duke University Press, 1994 http://books.google.com/books?id=dpRKltgJYYwC - Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership ______________________________________________________________ Over 80 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

Video: Al Jaffee

Here is some video (taken from a handheld device) of the one and only Al Jaffee. The uncredited fellow on the left is none other than influential Abrams editor and bon vivant Charlie Kochman. This is from a Barnes & Noble talk. My guess is that it was part of the "meet the author" series at the Upper West Side B&N last night. Mr. Jaffee explains the origin of his "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions." It's a great story that I had not heard. It runs just under 2 1/2 minutes.



Related:

A collection of Mr. Jaffee's comic strip TALL TALES (with an introduction by Mad fanboy Stephen Colbert) is available in hardcover. TT was syndicated by the Herald Tribune Syndicate and ran from 1957 to 1963.

"Jaffee conceived of Tall Tales while in desperate economic straits, and hit upon a winning formula for breaking into the lucrative comics syndicate game: rather than drawing a traditional horizontal strip that would compete with the existing material, he opted for a seven-inch-tall vertical strip, which gave editors a lot more flexibility as to where in the paper the strip would run. The tall format is a natural for wordless "double-take" sight-gags whose effect lies in the fact that your eye can't take in the whole strip in one go, so there's a little comic shock that comes after studying the page for a second or two."

- from Cory Doctorow's review at Boing Boing.

My friend Ger Apeldoorn has some TALL TALES Sundays here.

March 30, 2008 Al Jaffee NY Times profile (complete with an ever-so-cool multimedia fold-in gallery).

Al won the prestigious Reuben Award last May. This is my excuse to run the below photo of Al Jaffee and me, looking absolutely dashing in the soup & fish. This is just an hour after he was awarded the Reuben. More on the 2008 Reuben Awards event, with tons of photos & linkies, here and here.

Penguin T-Shirt by Mike Lynch

Hello there! I'm offering the above Penguin t-shirt for sale. Please consider buying one. It comes in both men's and women's sizes. And there's FREE SHIPPING today only.

This is first year I've done had a Zazzle store, so please feel free to suggest any ideas you have.

Orphan Works: Lame Duck Countdown

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Lame Duck Countdown 12.01.08 Part I. Little Known Facts Congress will reconvene for a lame duck session next week. That means Orphan Works backers may try again to pass their bill by suspending the rules. We believe this bill is too controversial to be passed by backroom dealing. It would let commercial interests harvest and monetize the personal property of ordinary citizens without their knowledge. The bill can be improved, and we've offered amendments that would improve it. But there's not enough time to improve it during a lame duck session. The bill should be held over until the next session of Congress, when those whose livelihood it will threaten can have the opportunity to present their case. Over the next few days, we'll highlight some little known facts about the way this bill has been conceived, drafted and promoted. We believe these facts raise serious questions about the legislative process that has brought this legislation to the brink of passage: 1. The "legislative blueprint" for the Orphan Works bill was not the result of the Copyright Office's year-long Orphan Works Study. It was drafted before the study began, by law students who made no apparent effort to survey its potential impact on commercial markets. 2. The blueprint was drafted under the guidance of a legal scholar who opposes current copyright protections. He has written that authors in the internet age "may not need the long, intense protection afforded by conventional copyright -- no matter how much they would like to have it." 3. The Copyright Office received barely 200 relevant letters to their Orphan Works Study. Although they testified to Congress that the number was "over 850," they failed to acknowledge that more than 600 letters had to be dismissed as irrelevant or too vague to determine their relevance to orphaned work. 4. In their Orphan Works Report, the Copyright Office failed to acknowledge a unified statement submitted by 42 national and international visual arts organizations. This statement called for the maintenance of existing copyright protections and warned that a bill drafted too broadly would spread uncertainty in commercial markets. 5. The Copyright Office studied the specific subject of orphaned work, yet concluded they had discovered a widespread "market failure" in commercial markets. But since they didn't study commercial markets, there's no evidence for this conclusion in their report. 6. The principal author of the Orphan Works Report has acknowledged that their true goal was to "pressure" working authors into relying on registries to protect their work. He said this was necessary because artists and photographers have "failed to collectivize." 7. The first commercial Orphan Works domain name was registered by an anonymous party more than two years before the Copyright Office announced their Study. Did this anonymous party have a crystal ball? How did he know the Copyright Office would ever study orphan works? How did he know they'd open the door to commercial usage? And why did he register anonymously? 8. Two of the key players in the legislative process have already left government service and gone to work for companies that stand to profit from passage of the bill. On the other hand, one of the parties who testified in favor of the bill has already gone to the Copyright Office. She's now in charge of orphan works. We think these and other little known facts give lawmakers sufficient reason not to pass this bill without a thorough vetting. Tomorrow: The Legislative Blueprint: How a copyright critic and his students tackled the "orphan works issue." - Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership ______________________________________________________________ Over 80 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

A Free Gift from Mark Heath

Cartoonist Mark Heath offers a free book of his syndicated comic strip Spot the Frog to anyone who would like one. Free. Postpaid. Just ask.

Here's Mark letting us in on his gift to all of us, the collection IT'S HARD TO COMB A GRASS TOUPEE:

So, until my supply runs out, anyone who would like a free copy of It's Hard to Comb a Grass Toupee, postage paid, with my thanks, let me know. Without readers, a cartoonist is only one hand clapping. Or drawing. Either way it's a lonely noise.

Hat tip to Mark Anderson!

WORLD'S FINEST by Ivan Brunetti & Evan Dorkin

Started out my morning reading this.

Big hat tip to Journalista!

Watch Your Head, Lio!

Cory Thomas's WATCH YOUR HEAD strip had a cameo yesterday:

Video: Dick Locher's Career

A great profile of a great cartoonist: 79 year old DICK TRACY cartoonist and editorial cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner Dick Locher is the subject of this video from Naperville Community Television Channel 17 reporter Elitsa Bizios. The video runs about 2 1/2 minutes.



Here is the accompanying text, supplied alongside the NCT video:

Dick Locher walked into the Chicago Tribune thirty-nine years ago. With seven original cartoons in hand, Locher interviewed for an editorial cartoonist position.

The editor set the cartoons up, he lit a cigar and walked back and forth looking at the cartoons, said Locher. He looked at me and said are these your ideas?

Assuring the editor that the cartoons were indeed his own, Locher was hired. Ever since then, Locher's work can be read in the Chicago Tribune. And after this year, he will be known as the longest running editorial cartoonist the newspaper has employed.

Locher is also well known for the stories and illustrations he has created of the crime fighting detective Dick Tracy. Other than originator Chester Gould, Locher is the only person to singly produce the strip.

It shows what a diverse talent he has, said Chicago Tribune editorial page editor, Bruce Dold. He can do something as fantastic as Dick Tracy and then as on point to today's world with editorial cartoons that he does.

During the week Locher can be found at his drawing table before dawn. He begins his work day at four in the morning.

The thought is that you have an idea before you sit down. I usually listen to the 10 o'clock news, said Locher Then at four in the morning try to put it in a presentation where you skewer someone or open a door to someones past life.

Almost four hours after waking up, Locher has a good pencil sketch of the final product and discusses the drawing over breakfast with his wife of fifty-one years, Mary Locher.

Locher says his wife is a first reaction person. She looks at the drawing and gives him critiques on how to make it better.

Editors are polite; she gives me thumbs up or down, said Locher. She looks at it and says, yeah this will fly but if you change it to this it would fly even better.

Mary Locher jokes that its not easy to start the day and have a penciled cartoon pushed under your nose when trying to have breakfast. But she remains diplomatic when giving feedback.

He just loves what hes doing and genuinely loves people and basically Dicks a happy person all the time and it amazes me,said Mary. And he likes to entertain people through his stories.

Locher has been perfecting his talent from a young age. His father would bring home stacks of blank paper and tell his son to do something with it.

He couldn't draw, didn't want to but saw that I could and wanted me to do something with it and hopefully I did.

With numerous awards to his credit, including a Pulitzer Prize, Locher is not the average cartoonist.

He really pays attention to details and you don't see that as much with editorial cartoonists these days, said Dold. And he understands how to make a good solid political point quickly and easily for the reader.

Locher says that after he gets done drawing his editorial cartoons and Dick Tracy there is still some creativity left. So he draws a picture a day that has no relationship to either.

You get to the point, have I done enough damage so far? asked Locher. I don't think so, there's still windmills to spear.

Elitsa Bizios reports.

Video: Mell Lazarus Speaks at the Charles M. Schulz Museum

Here it is, chopped up into six YouTube chunks: the creator of MISS PEACH and MOMMA, the NCS Division Award Winner (twice) for Best Comic Strip and Reuben Award winner -- the one and only Mell Lazarus -- giving a lecture at the Charles M. Schulz Museum. This was taped on November 8, 2008:

CMSM Lectures: Mell Lazarus Part 1



CMSM Lectures: Mell Lazarus Part 2



CMSM Lectures: Mell Lazarus Part 3



CMSM Lectures: Mell Lazarus Part 4



CMSM Lectures: Mell Lazarus Part 5



CMSM Lectures: Mell Lazarus Part 6



A big thanks to Jeannie Schulz and the staff at the CMS Museum for not only taping the event, but putting it out there for anyone to watch and listen the always entertaining Mell Lazarus.

Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!: Love Actually in (Sorta) Real Time: Five Weeks to Christmas

From the Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun! blog (one of my favorite blogs) comes a salute to the five year old movie starring most every British actor that's working in cinema: LOVE ACTUALLY.

Bully has written a lovely, enjoyable and thoughtful appreciation of a film that begins in the time we are in now: just 5 weeks prior to Christmas.

Even though I am one of "those people" that dislike LOVE ACTUALLY, I really enjoyed Bully's write up: Love Actually in (Sorta) Real Time: Five Weeks to Christmas.

Smithy and Rudi's Secret Handshake

Let's shake hands and say goodbye for Thanksgiving. Here's the secret handshake between Smithy (James Corden) and his sister Rudi (Sheridan Smith) from BBC Three's GAVIN AND STACEY series (available on iTunes, seen in the US on BBC America). I like Gavin and Stacey, but I like the supporting characters even more. Of course it helps that supporting character actors James Corden and Ruth Jones are also the co-creators and writers for the series. The clip runs 9 seconds.



More about the show at The Independent's site: Everything You Need to Know About ... Gavin & Stacey.

Economic Slowdown? Expand! Raise Prices!

One of the things you have to if you are going to be a freelance cartoonist -- a creator who moves from client to client, with no real home port, peddling your cartoons, surviving on your wits -- you have to an optimist. At least I do; even if that's completely opposite of the national mood.

As pundits and spinners and op ed writers and experts say these are absolutely, positively the worst days since the depression, I shrug and remember I can't change the time I'm born into.

This article from the NY Times Not a Bad Time for Small Businesses to Raise Prices, along with Monday's article Reader’s Digest Pushes on in Weak Climate, puts me in a good mood. I like a good contrarian.

SMILE

Cartoonworld is a small world. I live in Cartoonworld and I know. Or rather, I should know and I should not be surprised. If you have a couple of pro cartoonists as friends, you're never more than a few degrees from pretty much any other cartoonist that's out there.

Case in point, after reading Tom Richmond's blog, I watched EL TIGRE, co-created by my friends Sandra and Jorge. My friends are never far.

So, this afternoon, I should not have been surprised (but I was) when I saw my pal Brian Fies blog about my friend Raina Telgemeier. I didn't even know they knew each other! But, hey, this is what life is like in Cartoonworld.

Brian, who created one graphic novel (the award winning MOM'S CANCER) and will have a new one out (WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW) in Spring '09, lives in California. Raina, whose 4th graphic novel of THE BABYSITTER'S CLUB came out this fall (and her new GN, SMILE, about her dental problems, was just picked up by a publisher), lives in NYC.

Like Brian's MOM'S CANCER story, Raina's latest, SMILE, began as a Web comic. You can still go and read the beginning of it here.

Now I see that Brian has drawn a special strip for Raina about his own particular dental experiences. Go read Brian's blog, Fies Files, for the whole story.

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Power outages today in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Stand by ...