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Cartoonist Will Elder passed away today. I consider him one of the all-time greats, and his influence on my work is substantial. I am in awe of his work, the effort he put into his drawings, the dynamic style, the seemingly effortless aping of other artist's signature styles, his pen work, his sense of humor, his playfulness on the page, his insane background gags, and just how much he loaded into a standard page of comic art. If God is in the details, Will Elder channeled God. If you want to be a cartoonist, or just appreciate amazing cartooning, and you do not know this man's work, for shame, doc, for shame. Look and learn: EC, Mad, Panic, Trump, Humbug, Help!, Goodman Beaver, Little Annie Fanny. He was the great Harvey Kurtzman's greatest collaborator, together they were perhaps the greatest two-man tag-team in comics. He was one of the best. Recognize. |
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The veteran comic book artist Gene Colan is suffering from liver failure, and there have been a number of postings and updates and efforts on the artist's behalf launched over the last few days that I wanted to link to in case anyone reading is unaware of what's happening and would like to pitch in. I meant to post about this earlier but got sidetracked by the Ben's Charity debacle and work. The simplest thing anyone interested can do is drop Mr. Colan a card or letter just to cheer him up. Well-wishes, sympathy, thanks for a lifetime of fine work enjoyed, whatever. The details, as well as a letter on the subject from Mr. Colan's wife, can be found here. Beyond that, apparently the health issues being faced by the Colan family has taxed them financially, and there are several ways folks can help out if they can and choose to do so. Art by Gene Colan is being auctioned off here. Direct donations can be sent to the Colans through Paypal. The Colans are registered at genecolan@optonline.net . I made a small donation. I wish I could have sent more. I don't know anyone who has a bad word about the Colans (we've met them briefly at two local conventions over the years and they were just simply swell folks), and if I had a dime for every person involved in comics who was a fan of Gene Colan's lovely artwork, I'd have a nice big fat check to send them. Personally, I have tremendously fond memories of growing up on rich, non-house style Colan artwork on Daredevil, Iron man, and especially, especially, Howard the Duck, a comic I loved and was likely heavily influenced by in some way, shape or form. Steve Gerber has passed on, and Gene Colan is ill, and I'm heartsick and wish I had Todd McFarlane money. Or a way to get George Lucas to cough up a few grand in spare change lying around the couches at Skywalker Ranch as a way to apologize for the Howard the Duck "movie". And, hey, Marvel, yeah, it would be nice if they chimed in, but Marvel and DC suits don't necessarily act like heroes, they just make money off them. Okay, the cynicism's starting to leak out, so let's tie this off and wrap it up before I get good and cranky about how the publishers treated the old-timer freelancers who built them up and created their characters, and the U.S health care system and industry. Dirk Deppey's Journalista write-up with further links can be found here. Tom Spurgeon's write-up at The Comics Reporter with further links can be found here. If you're a fan, give it a think, won't you? Every $5 helps. Every letter brings cheer. Skip a few crossover comics this week and send the amount to someone who broke their hand working on hundreds of comics that looked swell and entertained a ton of people. We all say we love the older artists. They ain't getting any younger, folks, and most of them didn't make anything close to the money the Wizard Top 10 studs make working on the characters and concepts the vets bashed out like clockwork in order to pay the bills. It looks like some big guns are coming out to donate items for a benefit auction, which is a great sign and hopefully just the beginning of a major effort on the part of comics professionals and fans. Drop a line, transfer a few bucks. Show the damned love. |
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Warner Brothers legal has had the DC character-related listings for Ben's Charity Auction stopped, and is apparently going after the auctions that were already completed, as well. The letter from e-bay that Thomas received states that it was the use of DC copyrighted characters that got them noticed and squelched the auctions, although I wonder if it was also the use of the Superman silhouette in the listings (and perhaps the accompanying text alluding to Superman?) that got them noticed. Only a corporate lawyer or a complete cretin could think that constituted DC's involvement or approval, but, that's life in the big wide business world. Cripes. You'd think someone could let this go, for a cancer-related charity, it's a limited deal, and there are hundreds of other DC-related fan art and pro commission auctions on e-bay set up for personal gain that they don't bring the hammer down on. I think it's bullshit, and I know it's easy to have a knee-jerk "corporations suck" response like this, but, well, this sucks. If Thomas Denton overstepped his bounds, he was being naive, and he was trying to do a good thing that really isn't going to hurt poor Warner Brothers/DC, and someone in a suit could have made this right with a little work. Or quietly tossed in some bucks to the charity to cover the deal and been heroes about it even while stepping on someone's good efforts. I know, it only works that way in the movies. Maybe Thomas can recoup somehow, he's apparently out of pocket for the listing and e-bay fees, which he doesn't have. Hopefully the remaining auctions can cover his expenses. No good deed goes unpunished. Truth, Justice and the American Way. Read more about it at Thomas Denton's blog, |
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The Milk and Cheese piece for Ben's Charity Auction is now up on e-bay. Please consider tossing it a bid if you're into it, or consider bidding on one of the other pieces if you're of a mind. The money will benefit a good cause. I'll be shipping the M&C piece directly to the winner, so if they want, I will gladly personalize it for them. And maybe toss in a few extras, to boot. Bidding starts at a measly buck for everything.  |
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Milk and Cheese/World's Funnest pin-up for the Ben's Charity Art Auction organized by Thomas Denton through his Say it Backwards website. From what I understand, this is going up for auction tomorrow with a second wave of offerings. If I hear otherwise, I'll let folks know. UPDATE 5/10: The M&C piece is now up for auction, you can see the listing HERE. There's a number of drawings up for auction at the moment, this first wave goes up in about twelve hours from the time I type this. Here's a link to the auction for the Transmetropolitan page by Darick Robertson. Also, the Hulk piece I posted a few weeks ago will be auctioned off soon as part of Korry Smith's fundraising effort for The American Cancer Society. That benefit's been held back while Mr. Smith recovers from leg surgery, as soon as it goes ahead I'll post the information on it.  |
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Issue #10 of the Myspace Dark Horse Presents comic went up today, and so did a new two-page Milk and Cheese strip: Milk and Cheese in "The Fur Suit of Crappiness". Please enjoy. |
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Had a nice time at the Free Comic Book Day celebration at Comic Book Jones. Signed a few things, did a few sketches, got to see an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen in a while. Picked up a few comics for Emily, she really likes Owly and enjoyed the Top Shelf book. The Tiny Titans book was lousy, script-wise, but she's only three and change so she doesn't 't know that. The art's cute, but what a dreary read, nothing there, threadbare and unfunny, with extended gags riffing on old fandom jokes like "Speedy" not being a speed character. Two pages for that gag. Sheesh. The strips make Li'L Jinx look like Little Lulu. The characters basically talk while walking down the street or sit at school desks. That might work in Peanuts, it blows dust here. And they adhere to current DC continuity so there's two Wonder Girls, which actually confused Emily, as she knows who Wonder Woman is and could handle one little version of her. When the blonde version shows up we were all confused, actually. Bad, weak comic. She wasn't crazy about the Disney book, unfortunately, Gyro Gearloose not being the most killer-endearing character, imho. Not enough Donald Duck for her tastes. Or mine, to be honest. I got a copy of the Hellboy/BPRD comic for myself, which I enjoyed. The Hellboy story is an odd choice, insofar as it would be fairly useless for new readers to geta hell of a lot out of, but folks familiar with the comic, and I guess the movie, might like it fine, like I did. It's a bit of business more than a story but nicely done, and it'll read well in a collection. The other two stories are serviceable and look good. Otherwise, we've been busy with some stuff. I've been writing something for Mad, I've found it difficult going, I feel like I'm working a bit stiff trying to mix my verbose (i.e., blabbermouth) "Dork" style with the more terse and direct Mad style, and there are some other things bugging me about my first draft. Hopefully editing and revising will make something decent of it. We turned in a couple of gag panels for Nick Mag, another for Mad Kids. We're designing a Story Time segment for Yo Gabba Gabba!, which we also wrote. I'm finishing up another charity drawing tonight or tomorrow (dunno when the Hulk piece I posted a few weeks ago will be auctioned off, I better check in on that), then I have a Bart Simpson script for Bongo to finish up. And then I start on some scripts for Dark Horse on a project I've been hoping to get going for quite some time now. Yay. Speaking of DH, the latest "issue" of Dark Horse Presents on Myspace should be uploaded sometime today, with a new 2-page Milk and Cheese strip in the mix. It's about Furries. Guess what? They make fun of them. Yay. Back to work for me. |
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This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, blah blah blah. I'll be signing comics (if anyone asks me to) and doing free sketches (ditto) from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Comic Book Jones shop here on Staten Island. It should be pretty laid back. If nobody wants anything I'm just going to sit on a couch and read comics for a while. Sarah will be dropping by late in the day, I goofed up and made plans for the signing without remembering it was the same day as a local event we wanted to take Emily to. Duh. So, the gals will drop me off like a ruined omelette at the comic shop and head back once they're done acting like normal people enjoying themselves to watch daddy talk horseshit about drawings of superheroes and talking ducks or whatever the hell.. (Today Emily told Sarah, "Daddy likes that place", when they left the comic shop, as if she understood completely what kind of sad person I am when in my element. She also sounded a little sorry for me, I bet. I am alone even in my own home. But now my home has a copy of Willie & Joe: The World War 2 Years by the great Bill Mauldin, so I am temporarily happy in my little fanboy purgatory. And actually, Sarah digs Mauldin as well. Still...from what Sarah told me, Emily said "Daddy likes that place" as if they were helping me out of a bar I had disappeared into since late afternoon, hiding the fact that I had been fired from my job at the firm weeks ago). More information on the signing and the store here. Energetic folks can hit up both Comic Book Jones and the Jim Hanley's Universe on the South Shore and potentially load up on free stuff like there's no Free Comic Book Tomorrow. Bring the kids while you're at it. Or leave 'em at home, just make sure they have some water and something to eat handy or whatever. You could always leave the T.V. on, it's not like comics, kids love that stuff and it keeps 'em entertained for hours and hours. . |
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Here's one that freaks me out for various reasons: On Wednesday, June 4th, Dan Nadel will moderate a discussion on comics featuring Kim Deitch, Lauren R. Weinstein and myself. The event is being put together by the NY chapter of AIGA, which is apparently a professional graphic artists association whose membership is made up of professional graphic artists. Like I would know about that stuff. I had to leave the Nestle's Quik fan club because I couldn't keep up with my dues. Anyway, it will be held at Galapagos, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and costs $30 for non-members to attend. I don't think I'll be seeing many familiar faces at this one, I can't get my readers to cough up thirty beans for my artwork half the time, forget shelling it out to hear me talk about my artwork. Or whatever it is we're going to talk about. Juxtaposition or something. Formal attributes of the thought balloon. Who's stronger, Hulk or Superman? Who knows. I will wear my non-cursing mouth and try to behave myself. I'm not sure why I was asked to do this, considering how many cartoonists run amok in the NYC area, but, well, I'll show up and see what happens. Kim Deitch!? Wow. That's crazy. And then I'm on a panel with Jaime Hernandez at Heroes Con later in the month. Crazy. Details about the AIGA talk can be found here. |
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