Archive for May, 2007

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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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Posted in Comics | 1 Comment » | Tags : ,

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.

Posted in Illustration | No Comments » | Tags :

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…

Posted in Toys | 2 Comments » | Tags : , ,

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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Posted in Comics, Illustration | 1 Comment » | Tags : ,

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.

Posted in Comic Strips | 1 Comment » | Tags :

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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40 Part 30 - My Ex-barber

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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Here’s a comic by Adrian Tomine from the New Yorker, May 2nd, 2005. I remember having this conversation almost verbatim (in Dutch, naturally) with my barber back in my home town, when I was home for summer from University, back in the 80’s.

I was quite addicted to Tomine’s Optic Nerve series at one time, but I got over it, I think. Every time a new issue comes out, I have a relapse, tough…

Here and here are good interviews with Tomine. Read and learn…

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40 Part 29 - Don’t vote Cliche

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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These images are from a Flemish Government awareness campaign that was set up to coincide with one election or other (we have so many of them, it’s hard to keep count). The general idea is clear : don’t just vote for white men - other people may be just as qualified for the job. But the use of superheros made it stand out. For a while.

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40 Part 28 - The Cute Manifesto

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

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This strip, from the April, 2005 Previews, will sound quite familiar to the members of the Yahoo Groups incarnation of the Comics Ephemerist. Its two final panels were our motto for a long, long time. I still think it’s quite a compliment if it’s applied to you.

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