Archive for May 22nd, 2007

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40 Part 40 !! Lambiek Avontuur Strip

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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This is the final post in my 40th anniversary marathon. And at the same time, it is a look back at how it all began. I had heard that Chris Ware had been doing a promotional strip for Amsterdam comic store Lambiek, that was not available for the public at large. After begging and groveling for a while, I managed to convince the Lambiek people that I was totally unable to come to Amsterdam, but still would very much like a copy. And they gave in (perhaps to get rid of me, perhaps because I’m such a nice bloke - hm).

When I discussed this book with some online friends, we came to the conclusion that we needed a platform to share stuff like this - cartoonists’ work that appeared in magazines, in advertisments and in other places other than traditional comic books. And The Comics Ephemerist was born.

And so, to celebrate all this, here is the Lambiek Avontuur Strip in all its glory.

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40 Part 39 - Best Wishes

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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New Year’s cards are always a good source for nice illustrative work. These cards were commissioned respectively by Humo Magazine in 2005, and comic store Het Besloten Land in Leuven, Belgium in 2006(the best comic store on the continent, let me tell you). The art is by Ever Meulen (obviously) and Ilah, one of the few women cartoonists in Belgium, but also one of the finest. Cartoonists, that is.

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What ? Is this year gone already as well ?

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40 Part 38 - Seth 2.0

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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The late nineties were a golden time for magazines, especially magazines that were combining technology and business subjects. Red Herring, Business 2.0, Fast Company, they kept on bulking on until they were as heavy as a phone directory. And then the bubble burst, and the magazines either disappeared (and, let’s face it, today’s Wired is only Wired by name) or slimmed down considerably.

Still, it was cool while it lasted, and it gave illustrators nice new outlets for their work. Such as the illustration above, which was published in Business 2.0 in 2000 and came with an article on small business promotion on the web. I particularly like the contrast between the glitz of that subject, and Seth’s trademark toned-down colors.

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40 Part 37 - Harvey Pekar

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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I like Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor stories very much, and I’ve been trying to collect the original editions for a while now. However, I think that Harvey is in his prime when he does short, non-fictional, review-like comics, like the two I’m presenting here.

The tribute to Marlon Brando, above, is from Entertainment Weekly (July 17, 2004), and was illustrated by Gary Dumm. Below is an ode to Ohio, from the Washington Post (October 31, 2004), also with art by Gary Dumm.

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40 Part 36 - Bernie Krigstein

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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Long before Penguin commissioned book covers from cartoonists, Bernie Krigstein made this beautiful cover for the Universal Library edition of Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth.

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40 Part 35 - Lego ?!

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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Here’s a little game for you all. The image above shows three very famous British comics writers. Can you guess them all ?

Update - as numerous people have told me, this is the work of David Oakes, who has a whole showcase of neat comic-related Lego stuff at his website, including the Watchmen, Hourman and Sandman (my favorite Golden Age characters) and The Endless. Do check it out !

Just to make a point clear - it was never my intention to feast on David’s inspiration. During this 40th Birthday Marathon, I mostly posted stuff that I had shared in my Comics Ephemerist Yahoo Group. I had simply forgotten where I got this, and googling for “neil gaiman lego figure” didn’t bring anything up either — oops, now I’ve given the answer away. Oh, well…

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40 Part 34 - Chris Ware Narrates New Yorker

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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Chris Ware provided the cover for the November 27, 2006 issue of The New Yorker. Or rather, he provided no less than 4 covers, which form a comic when combined.

The New Yorker gracefully made all covers available on their website, and added a fifth page, which, in true Ware fashion, completed the comic by continuously cramming more panels on a single page.

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40 Part 33 - Craig Thompson in Nickelodeon Magazine

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

I blogged about Nickelodeon Magazine before, and here’s some proof of the cool goodies that you can find in this magazine. Craig Thompson we all know, of course, for his international hit Blankets, in which he already shows his masterful experimentation with page layout. In 2001 and 2002, Thompson published some comics in Nickelodeon Magazine, in which he takes this experimentation to the next level.

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Ogre and Bunny and Space Explorers (above, from april 2002) are so-called Cartoonigami comics, with different storylines depending on how you fold them. Just try it, it really works !

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The Prankster (above left, from the September, 2001 issue) is a wonderful play on the contextual meaning of motion lines, onomatopaea and the like. Juanita And Clem (above right, from the December, 2002 issue) imagines what would happen if a piece of the page was torn out.

This is the kind of stuff that I would like to see more in conventional comics.

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40 Part 32 - Marjane Satrapi at West Point

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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In 2005, the French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi was invited to speak to the cadets at West Point (where “Persepolis”, her account of her life in Iran later was put on the required reading list). This strip, from the New York Times, tells of how she experienced that strange event.

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40 Part 31 - Ka-bala

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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I was born in 1967. Life was simpler then, and the Kabbalah was just a board game (from Tales Of The Unexpected 104).

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