Against Charity!!

Well, of course we are not 'against charity'. But I got up late on Sunday and all we had to read was a crappy local paper called Scotland on Sunday, it's sort of like if Edinburgh was a school, this would be the school magazine. Oh, it's probably no worse than some papers and better than some others, but it has no soul, it has poor and uninspired graphics, it pays no attention to people like me, illustrators who have to go abroad to make a living, whilst promoting writers who will never, ever, get their work into the publications that use mine. It is a very dull paper, indeed.

Anyway, I happened on a review of a book, the proceeds of which go to a good cause, Dave Eggers's 826 New York, which helps children aged 6 - 18 with their reading skills; the book, edited by Zadie Smith, is called The Book of Other People and in it 23 authors make people up. Now the book has, according to the review in this newspaper, an 'astonishing' roll-call of contributors - er, okay.

What does astonish me is that there are what the reviewer calls '3 graphic novelists' included here. Now, I might be missing the point altogether, but given that the fight is against illiteracy, and about tempting reluctant 'kids' aged 6-18 to 'read', wouldn't something the kids themselves might actually also want to look at be a better idea? Wouldn't more 'graphic novelists' have been, I don't know, in keeping with the message? I mean, I know that it is popular to align yourself with comic-book culture these days, what with Ian Rankin and the like eager to write Hellblazer and the increasingly hilarious Virgin Comics 'crew' such as musicians Dave Stewart and Duran Duran and movie star Nick Cage and Junior all giving birth to their inner-comics,
but cramming 20 wannabes like Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith, Toby Litt and AL Kennedy et al, in an anthology with only 3 'graphic novelists', that's a bit desperate, isn't it?

Now, as for the 3 'graphic artists', I'm presuming, that Zadie Smith is a Guardian reader, because the choices are so obvious, and so uninspired, that only a Gruniad reader would have settled for them: Posey Simmonds, Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. Of course I am a fan of Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes and Posey is okay, but come on, this is hardly 'edgy'. There is a reason why Posey draws the green-welly brigade you know, it's because she is one of them. What's more Posey is in her 60s now, I mean, if you have to get a 'token' British cartoonist, sorry 'graphic novelist' does it have to be such an obvious choice. All the writers involved try desperately to be, or at least to look, young and hip, so why not try to find a talented youngster out there to illustrate a story?

As far as Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes go, the Gruniad readers have seen references to Jimmy Corrigan in articles about comic books, they aren't quite sure who Daniel Clowes is because they don't actually read comic books, but he has entered their consciousness at the cinema, during the credits of Ghost World - Oh, that's Daniel Clowes. I am a fan of both these cartoonists, but I can't justify having three quarters of the small representation of 'graphic novelists' come from the US, in what appears to be a British anthology, it gives the impression, wrongly, that there are no 'graphic novelists' or as we occasionally refer to them, 'cartoonists' working in the UK. Of course there are, and the reason they mainly ply their trade abroad or produce mini-comics themselves to reach their markets is because British publishers are only interested in them after they become a big success abroad, and the Guardian and the Telegraph write articles about them - without actually soiling their pages with the work, except as examples.

Having said all that, 3 cartoonists in this anthology is better than none, and the cover might just fool some people into thinking that there is a lot more artwork in the book than there actually is. So that's a plus. For all you 'content analysis' freaks, the review covered an entire page, and about twenty words were devoted to the 'graphic novelists', and that was a discussion about word balloons.

Old Coren is dead.

I wonder sometimes if manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.

The thing about working for Punch during 'Old Coren's' reign, from around 1978 - 1987, was that as a cartoonist one had achieved two things; you had made it as a cartoonist because it was the satirical magazine that gave birth to the cartoon, the pinnacle of cartooning; Punch was, after all, the magazine on which The New Yorker was based, but it also meant something else, something equally important, that one had met with Alan Coren's approval. Perhaps, even, that one had made Alan Coren laugh, and that was really, really some achievement.

I don't know how you might compare this to another profession, perhaps if you were a painter and you visited Picasso and found he had a painting of yours on the wall, or you were a singer and maybe heard Sinatra say in an interview that he listened to your songs. I think that's the sort of yardstick it was, to many of us cartoonists. It really meant more than any payment or associated fame or contracts that might result from appearing in the famous tome. Now, how often can you say that, nowadays?

I have to say I always enjoyed reading Punch. Of course, nowadays, give me an issue from that period and I'll read it from cover to cover, but even back then I enjoyed Coren's piece, it was effortlessly clever, and always fiercely funny, and I loved the fact that this clever, funny, man enjoyed cartoons so much, and enjoyed some of my cartoons. I suppose, like many of my peers, sending cartoons to Punch was as much about seeking approval from Alan Coren as if was about getting into that magazine.

In more than one interview his love of the cartoons came over and that is unusual even in a humour magazine where the editors like you to think they are doing you an enormous favour by publishing your work - Coren was the exact opposite. He said, '...the writers like me, knew it was the cartoons that sold the magazines'.

Alan Coren (1938 - 2007) will be missed. I wish I could think of something funny to say, I can't.

Webcomics Tools

I promised Euphrosene Labon a post about useful webcomic tools. It caused me some inner-turmoil though, because I was going to keep this one to myself, but then if I did that, the guy who put it together, Kevin Forbes, wouldn't get the kudos he deserves, so I had to bite the bullet. This first tool, Boxen, can be used, indeed is being used by me, to make templates for print work as well as web comics, so Euphrosene will find it very useful indeed, I hope.

Me, I love the thing because as you'll know from reading earlier posts I cannot draw a straight line, or at least I can't see one. I have some kind of problem with one eye, something to do with depth perception and my left eye has lost some seeing power, and for some reason I see a straight line and draw it, and it turns out to be squint. So thank goodness for the fantastic brain power of Kevin Forbes, the cartoonist behind the comic strip Simulated Comic Product, for he has given the world Boxen, which is at present in its Beta state.




This is the sort of programme that will have the Luddites squealing, but I couldn't give a flying bat's fart, I have a painful eye and I intend to use this programme. Take a look at the top line where you decide what your comic template will be. Now, you can do a lot of things with this little gem, including, setting the 'gutter at .25, the margins to, about .25, then set the 'width' to 4.25 and the 'length' to 13.25 and the 'line' to .030. After that you can just 'right-click' in there and add 1 or 2 or 3 panels, of equal size, then export it as a 300 dpi png file (you'll have to open it in PS or PSP or whatever to save it as a tiff or a jpeg. And you have a lovely 300dpi print resolution comic strip somewhere around the standard comic strip size of 13"x4".


You can then work with the thing and reduce it for the web, if that's your aim.


The goodness doesn't end there, you can make up single panels, comic book pages, Sunday-size comic strip templates, you name it. For template lovers like me (remember my eye!) this takes the guessing out of making my 'graphic novel' templates. Generally, I work small and make the pages almost 'same-size', around 9"x7", and I like to stick to a format, when I can, for instance 6 or 9 panels a page. So I can make 300dpi templates, print them out on a conventional printer, draw on the page, and scan it back in. Of course, if you want to, you can open the png in PS and convert the lines to a pale blue (non-photo blue) and trace over then giving the panels a hand-drawn look.

As I say, my hats off to Kevin, this is a great little toll, I think it's great that he's taking the time and effort to do this.

Next up, and this is another really handy tool for web comic artists, is the 'dirty little secret' of the Mac-users, Comic Life, by Plasq. What use is this to me with my PC and my dislike of all things Smarty-panty-Maccy? I hear you ask. Well, this multi award winning little powerhouse, which handles templates, word balloons and lettering, is currently being Beta-tested for Windows and if you head along to the Plasq site you can join in and take part in the testing. It sounded, last time I looked in, as if this 4th incarnation of the Windows version of Comics Life is going to be the last beta before a stable Windows version is released. If it's your thing, go get it.

The next two webcomic tools are services, created by cartoonist and computer programmer, Ryan North, the guy behind Dinosaur Comics. In all, so far, Ryan has created three tools to aid webcomic authors, Oh No Robot, a webcomic transcription tool which creates searchable text databases for comics:




RSSpect, a method of creating RSS feeds for websites;

and Project Wonderful, a pay-per-day auction-based ad serving system.

As far as fonts go, I'd recommend Ron Evry's Witzworx, which, such is the generosity of the man, he almost gives away. It works at low and high resolutions and there is no problem about you using it for commercial reasons, if and when your comic project starts bringing in the money:


Most times it the bitchiness and the pettiness and the in-fighting amongst the creatives in the cartooning community that gets the news, but there is a generosity of spirit out there that is often overlooked. If you do get round to using some of this stuff, drop the creators a quick line and let them know how much you appreciate their efforts.

Day of the Dead

I think that by Halloween I'll have my new website sorted. I don't know if I want to make a strip, as such, I'd rather just do a bunch of comics sometimes with the same characters, sometimes with the same themes and sometimes serialized over a period, but I don't want to do a strip, per say. If the comics theme I'm using allows me to, I'll drop in the comics without trying to make them all the same size and format, and without posting one panel at a time; which annoys the heck out of me.

Anyway, I've been drawing and writing some new comics, and Dia De Los Muertos should, as long as the posting went well, also be in Shoit Crock 13. It's a story that will grow in length, it began as only one page and at 4 pages I think it is beginning to look like an Orpheus-like tale with the repentant father following his son, and his wife, to the underworld.

This second story has been a real pain. It was a simple idea that I planned to draw in an hour or so while watching TV, but I drew it as one huge page and it really screwed it up. I've made it into two pages now. Originally a one-off, I think I'll enjoy drawing more exciting adventures for Count Orlok, single dad.

Gerry Mooney's Big Comixpress Adventure

I like Gerry Mooney. Gerry is one of the people I like to discuss the direction comics can go in, with. There are cartoonists who are completely disinterested in this, although I can't fathom why, and others who have no interest in cartoons at all. Of course this shouldn't be a surprise, if you think of cartooning as a job then it is analogous with shoe sales-persons who are not interested in shoe design, or hospital workers who don't care about medical research, or hospital closures. Of course if you think of cartooning as one of the arts, it's more difficult to understand.


Anyway, Gerry is one of those who is interested and is always looking at the way the business of cartooning changes and adapts. And he has adapted one of his current projects, his Flash movie 'Sister Mary Dracula' to the comic book format. I have to say the result is pretty impressive.


With the help of the POD company Comixpress, Gerry's self-published comic book is every bit as impressive as any other comic book out there. This first episode of Sister Mary Dracula contains Chapter 1 of the story, with Chapter 2 promised early next year, 2008. In addition there's a few pages of his comic strip Goo and Roo, and a nice advert or two for the Mooney Art Studio, and SMD merchandise.

The story itself, which is well drawn and rendered in half-tone, is told from the point of view of the protagonist, Terry Malloy, a schoolboy, and it has all the right elements of imagination and suspense. We, the reader, have no idea if Terry has actually seen what he thinks he has seen, or if it is all down to his vivid imagination - the truth will only unfold with a full reading of the entire story. The final panel of Chapter 1, performs the job of leaving you wondering 'what happens next'? and that is the prerequisite of any good story.

I have to say I am impressed by the quality of Comixpress's work. I have seen that the POD model works with comic strips because another friend of mine, cartoonist, Jay Nocera, published a comic book of his Buddy and Hopkins work, but I think this latest example, Sister Mary Dracula, throws up one or two more possibilities for the future of cartooning and of mini comics, anthologies and portfolios. We live in interesting times.

For any of my interested British cartoonist chums. I have one or two copies of Gerry Mooney's Sister Mary Dracula comic book that I will send to one or two of you (you can enjoy the story and check out the quality of the Comixpress publication) if you do the following. Email me with your address and answer the following question correctly:

1. What school does Terry attend, in the story?

Thank you for the replies everyone, as of now, 15.38 on the 1st October 2007, the 3 copies of Sister Mary Dracula have been won. The lucky trio are Alex, Wilbur and Ian.

Between Friends: Sandra Bell-Lundy's new blog

One of my favourite cartoonists, Canada's own Sandra Bell-Lundy, creator of Between Friends, has a new blog; here!


I am a huge fan of Sandra Bell-Lundy's comic strip, Between Friends. My daughter Dominique has a highly-cherished signed copy of Sandra's book in her collection, and I have a highly-cherished original comic strip. We are a family of Sandra Bell-Lundy fans.

I couldn't resist letting you see Sandra's beautiful artwork 'same size', from her original drawing.

I am making this clear from the beginning so that nobody thinks I am jumping on the bandwagon because Sandra is one of the small group of cartoonists whose work is enjoyed in both mainstream and indy circles - only Between Friends, Dilbert, Mutts, Get Fuzzy, Pearls, Doonsbury, Non Sequitur, Candorville, Peanuts, newcomer Lio, and For Better or for Worse really get mentioned with any degree of affection from both camps.

Sandra's artwork caught my eye immediately and for want of a better term I'd say it that's because it looks 'New Yorkerish'. In British terms it would be the sort of artwork Posey Simmonds would produce, so it was already a given that I would like the strip. It's the subtle humour though, that keeps one reading, coming back to see what happens next in the lives of the three professional, highly-caffeinated women, at the centre of the strip.

Now, I know it's a strip about women, but I watched Sex in the City and I watch Ugly Betty and I read the adventures of Little Lotta and Little Dot and Nancy when I was younger, so I'm not afraid to admit I'm the sort of man who enjoys Between Friends by Sandra Bell-Lundy - and neither should you be.

I Didn't Mean all British Cartoonists Are Crap, I Meant They Have Become Crap.

There's a point to this cartoon. I drew this cartoon for a special issue of The Harvard Business Review and it appeared on a whole half-page. I was well paid for it. It is not a domestic gag or a gag about new technology being funny or about how gauche youth are today. It is a gag that was created for a public audience, albeit one with similar interests (it's a very expensive magazine with an exclusive readership), but I'm happy with the interpretation that it's a lion playing with his food and his intended food, if lions could talk and if they had business lunches with rabbits. In other words it exists in its own parallel universe and it is one the readers of the magazine understand.

The title of this post is a little Hitchcock joke, you know, the one about actors and cattle. I think when I was on the Cartoonist Club public forum I called British cartoonists crap and thick. Sort of a very poor bunch, much in keeping with the society, or at least the readership, they sometimes create their 'gags' for. Of course they may have noticed that I am one of the people I have rounded on, I am a British cartoonist, then again they may not (whisper: not the sharpest nibs in the box).

Of course I didn't mean ALL British cartoonists, just the 'gag cartoonists', and not all of them, some of them are pretty great, like me. I certainly don't and can't include the British comic artists and writers, many of whom worked for IPC, who were poached by America long ago and have had the canvas of DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Image on which to practise and broaden their ever-growing talents.

That's the thing you see, the publications that allowed our gag cartoonists in the UK to show their talents and skills no longer exist. The old skin mags alone provided pages and pages of space for full-colour, full-page cartoons and comic strips and panels, and IPC and DC Thomson between them provided hundreds of pages for our gag cartoonists to stretch their wings and work on serials and self-contained comic pages. Learning about hitting deadlines and revising work and pacing and timing and self-editing and the disciplines and skills of the job. And, of course, there was Punch, the magazine in which, cartoons were born and the home of the surrealist cartoon.

If you had sharp eyes in those days you could fins Daily Mail editorial cartoonist Stan McMurtry's drawings in IPC's comic pages, in The Mail, and in Punch, sharpening his skills as a comic strip artist, and editorial cartoonist and a magazine cartoonist. Other cartoonists were drawing their daily quota of cartoons and even adding writing the comics to their ever-growing list of skills.

When the juvenile comics division of IPC went tits-up, some cartoonists moved to the one remaining major comics producer in the UK, D.C. Thomson, but with falling readership and the use of reprints it looks like the writing may be on the wall for the comics division there before too long (hopefully that won't be the case, but it looks like a familiar scenario). Others either moved into different areas, or gave up. I know quite a few who simply downed tools.

So what do we have left over here for people who want to draw cartoons for national publications? Well, not a lot, I'm afraid. The only daily paper left that sometimes buys cartoons is the Sun (wife and neighbour gags) The Oldie (isn't new technology and the youth of the day funny?), The Spectator (try to be Castro, or Heath), Private Eye (isn't new technology and the youth of today and Boris Johnstone funny?) and Prospect (pretty good gags usually), oh yes, and The Weekly News (wife and neighbour gags), are about the only national publications here in the UK that still buy cartoons. Given that this is all we have, for a population of 60 million, all of whom, apparently, are now cartoonists, to fight for space in, I don't have high hopes for the future of British cartooning. I mean, a simple bit of content analysis tells you that not many (even if my figure of 60 million cartoonists is a wild exaggeration) are doing good business, or possibly even making a living wage, especially since 3 of those titles have few open spots due to their habit of using their favourite 'tame' cartoonists; and in one case the Cartoon Editor's favourite is himself, so there's even less opportunity there.

This flippant little post makes light of a serious problem. There is a stage, a time that you give yourself when you start out cartooning, that you will not pass, it is a marker, it's the very last moment you are prepared to wait to 'break in'. At that stage only the really brave or the really foolhardy hang on. That used to be anything from 6 months to 2 years, depending on the individual. I have no idea how long it would be today, and I can't imagine too many talented newcomers will be prepared to hang on to find out. They are much more likely to bone-up on their Flash and Lightwave and Maya and Studio Max and Manga Studio skills and just head off into a different direction, leaving behind those less-talented, and too stupid to do anything else - those I mentioned at the beginning.

The irony is, of course, that the future has never looked so rosey. With publishers falling over themselves to learn about 'graphic novels' and small Flash animations all the rage on Mobs and new technologies opening up more new avenues a good, well-skilled, cartoonist will really be able to take advantage of what lies ahead. Of course that's the problem; this current generation of cartoonists have no experience hitting daily and weekly deadlines, they can't string a sequential narrative together, they can't write a story, half of them, and those who were at one point skilled enough have become deskilled providing for the only markets that are left. All they can do is sit down and think up gags about wives, neighbours and how funny all this new fangled technology is.

This is why, and I believe there is already evidence of this happening in the US, publishers are cherry-picking indy cartoonists and web cartoonists and people who publish their own mini comics to work on their titles rather than 'mainstream cartoonists', who have surely come to be viewed, perhaps rightly, as the least-talented of all the 'creatives' out there.

The Weekly Updates

Okay, the date on MPD Psycho's celebration there is my draft date, so this is, September the 11th 2007, a Tuesday. Beginning this weekend I'll update the blog here with a new celebration of Manga every Sunday, that's beginning Sunday 16th of September, when we will celebrated what is possibly the greatest Manga story ever, and certainly one of the most successful, Death Note, with graphics from the Manga, the Anime and both movies.

Where are my Manga-ners (see what I did there?)

I really didn't draw a lot of attention to my Manga Stories blog, I Manga. I should have; not because it's brilliant, or anything, but because, well because that's the purpose of putting the thing up there in the first place, so it will be read, right?

It's not really a review blog, more of a celebration. I'm afraid I have become an Otaku and I only get the thrill I once got looking at US and British comic books from Manga these days, so naturally I want to share my enthusiasm. I have already blogged on MPD Psycho, the Manga and the TV show (I fart in the general direction of your Twin Peaks and Wild Palms) with plenty graphics and haven't added a new post to the blog yet, but as I have said all along it is going to be a very self-indulgent blog.

Imanga will feature some of the following Manga and Anime and Live Action shows in the weeks to come, Honey and Clover, Monster, Soil, Seizon, YKK, Shinchan, Pluto, Humunculus, Sexy Voice and Robo, Air Gear, 20th Century Boys, Drifting Classroom, etc, etc, and, of course, Death Note, where I'll be singing the praises of one of the greatest Manga ever written. I'll cover the Death Note Manga, anime, and both movies (which are marvelous):

Mammal Hunting

You know, you've probably heard about 'British Reserve' and haven't really believed it exists, not if you've heard the Welsh rugby crowd singing, or seen the Tartan Army's corn beef tartan arses, or Essex girls on a Hen Night (I was once chased along Edinburgh's West End by a bunch of them, all of whom were wearing huge wedding dresses complete with veils) - but I can assure you it exists. The British are more likely to offer their children a salute or a handshake, rather than a hug. Well, the same rules apply on the net and even there, in anonymity, they, sorry we, often can't quite bring themselves to say 'I love you', or 'I'll miss you', and instead offer up our 'thoughts', which is at least something and you should think kindly of it because it is difficult to be like this and to know you are like this.

So, anyway, when I first started scooting about the net I visited the places cartoonists frequent and the big deal amongst British cartoonists was 'getting their own sites' and 'whether or not to link to other people'. Now yes, it's cute, and it reveals a misunderstanding about what the net is and how it works, but whilst some of them maintained they didn't think they should link to 'the competition'; I saw it more as a fear of admitting their admiration for a fellow cartoonist.

I'm pleased to say that the younger cartoonists are more forthcoming, but trust me, look at the links on most British cartoonist's web pages, if they have any, and you'll maybe find a link to the publications they work for, but few, if any, to their fellow craftsmen - face it, centuries of repression can't go away overnight.

Okay, so the point of this preamble is the second problem that some cartoonists have, and not just British ones this time, of working together. I mean my own theory is that too many of us are psychopaths or suffering from ADD or some other ailment that leads to the strange behaviour that makes us repeat the same actions over and over again (buying paper, drawing on it, and sending the drawings to the same people week in - week out) expecting a different result - Freud was perfectly clear about what that suggested...Oh yeah, sorry, rambling again, this other problem is the inability to work together. Now I have had personal experience of this and the group I was going to be in spent, literally, weeks trying to tie one another down with 'contracts' and 'agreements'. In fact the group spent so much time debating how to dot-the-is and stroke -the-ts that it disbanded before it began.

For me that was a pity because small, exclusive, groups of cartoonists, like-minded ones, is where I think the future of cartooning lies. The small group of cartoonists that works both as a collective, like a mini-syndicate or stock house, if you will, on certain projects, but individually, as freelancers, on others. Sometimes, and Meathaus would be an example of this, the groups can be quite large and remain successful. Or they can be small and exclusive and target a particular market, such as kids comics, like the Lunchbox Funnies artists.

The cartoonists of Dumbrella and Secret Friends Society and various other groups are now meeting with some well deserved success, and I'm pretty much convinced that one of the newer groups, a promising bunch of web cartoonists who are producing some excellent work, and a not too shabby website either; The Panel Mammals, will also go pretty far.

Featuring the work of cartoonists Jarrett Osborne, Mike Witmer, Scott Metzger and Jim Tierney, the Panel Mammals survived the difficult part of agreeing to become a group of individuals and they have succeeded in creating an identity for themselves as new creative group with four very individualistic and funny comic strips, one of which features a tree, yes a tree, as the main character:

Jarrett Osborne's The Pursuit of Mandy
Jim Tierney's Jetpacks and Time Machines

Mike Witmer's Pinkerton
Scott Metzger's Tree

Arnold Wagner, Old Friend, RIP

It is with a heavy heart that I bring you the news that Arnold Wagner is no longer with us. Arnold had been in poor health for some time, not that anyone seeking his sage advice knew that because he was always there to pass on a kind word of encouragement or information and tips to anyone who needed them, at the various forums and sites he attended.

Here is a little about Arnold, from Arnold's own profile on The Wisenheimer:

I took the Cartoonists' Exchange correspondence course, among others, and an extension course in cartooning during high school. I attended Advertising Art School in Portland Oregon for four years, with an interruption for some unpleasantness called the army. Then I began submitting to magazines and doing local work. In 1960 Joe Pierre and I founded a cartoonist's trade journal, The PRO Cartoonist & Gagwriter, resulting in my researching all aspects of cartooning, past, present and hopefully the future.I've dabbled in most areas of cartooning, but have primarily worked in gag cartooning, advertising and illustration. I wrote the how-to book The Complete Idiot's Guide To Cartooning.

I currently reside in Salem Oregon with my wife who I met at art school. We live in a large old house with thousands of books and a horde of stuff we can't bear to toss. We have three daughters, all married, and five grandchildren. My studio is in the basement, my wife's is on the second floor, the secret of a long and happy marriage.

I shall miss Arnold enormously, he had done it all, in cartooning terms, but was still eager to learn new things. He will be greatly missed by all of us who were lucky enough to know him.

Ellen Forney Taught Me How to Twirl my Tassles.

Actually, I've never met Ellen Forney. I love her work though, and her fantastic book, I Love Led Zeppelin, is an absolute delight, covering, as it does, more than a decade of her work as a cartoonist.

It's her comics that I really enjoy though, and coming from Edinburgh I chanced across them completely by accident. I found her artwork, you see, in the comic book pictured above. It's the cover of the first of the excellent Bizarro World Anthologies by DC Comics. I have both now, but this one holds a special affection for me because the concept was so new to me. I mean I read Not Brand Ech, and Fred Hembeck's super hero parody stuff years ago, but this was really different, and I think it made me more interested in looking up the comic book characters I'd long ago deserted. The premise of the Bizarro Anthologies is traditional DC characters as seen through the eyes of indie-comic artists and writers, and it works brilliantly. The cover here was drawn by Xaime Hernandez and the collection features work by Tony Millionaire, Chip Kidd, Chris Duffy, Dupuy Berberian, Evan Dorkin, Derek Kirk Kim, Ediie Campbell, Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier, Jim Cambell, etc, etc, and Ellen Forney, of course.

Anyway, one of my favourites from the comic is the Wonder Woman story, pictured above, written by Mo Willems and drawn by Ellen Forney, and I was delighted to find that Dirk Deppey has posted a link to Ellen's video talks about cartooning on his Journalista Blog. I mean I love these things. Decades ago, when I was working as a comic artist and only really knew one other cartoonist, I managed to get a hold of Cartoonist Profiles and it made me feel that I really was part of something. Video tutorials and Streaming process work-throughs and diaries are even better though, they really will inspire beginning artists even more profoundly than old Jud Hurd's magazines influenced the likes of me.

The screen-capture detail, from one of the videos; is from Dirk Deppey's

Journalista Blog and the link to the videos is courtesy of Eric Reynolds

from his posting on The Fantagraphics Blog.

Here's a direct link to the videos.

Who Am I?

No, not the words of Rumpelstiltskin, the opening sentence of the book Nadja, by the author of The Surrealist Manifesto, Andre Breton.

Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.

I'm a big fan of Art Spiegelman, who is a big fan of Breton and who took the idea of the parlour game that Breton and his Surrealist chums played, The Exquisite Corpse, and turned it into, what I thought was a very disappointing book, The Narrative Corpse.

The parlour game, The Exquisite Corpse, involved the person who starts the circle writing an opening sentence at the top of a piece of paper. They then hand the piece of paper on, and the next player writes a sentence to follow on from the first. The piece of paper is then folded so only the most recent line of text is seen by the next person who writes a sentence to follow on from that, and this carries on until all the players have added a line of text. Once the final person in the chain has added his or her sentence, the thing is unfolded and read as a complete narrative.

Art Spiegelman's book, The Narrative Corpse, published by Gates of Heck, features sixty-nine well-known cartoonists who each drew three panels featuring a stick-figure, based on only the previous three panels. The results were, patchy.

Oh yes, the point, well, the point is that a bunch of people from TCJ Forum have resurrected the idea, once again, of producing a version of The Exquisite Corpse, but one that differs from Art Spiegelman's project and yet still manages to hold equally true to the Surrealists goals of transformation, of a constant state of change. Whether it will also hold true to their goals of cooperation and humour will unfold in the fullness of time - but the signs, I think, are good.

"How can we retain from waking life what deserves to be retained, even if it is just so as not to be unworthy of what is best in this life itself?"

This Exquisite Corpse will take a year or more come into existence, and involves each player creating 1 or 2 pages of artwork, and forwarding only their last panel to the next cartoonist in line, who will then create his or her 1 or 2 pages of artwork and forward only their last panel. It has, I feel, more of a chance of becoming an unconscious collage, than The Narrative Corpse did. That is, of course, providing it manages to survive the curse of Ray Tan (the mysterious Comics Journal Board member who made the first Corpse disappear).

The very brave and talented, and some might say foolhardy, Luke Przybylski, Eric, and Aeron Alfrey, are doing the hard work of rounding us up, and Eric is also keeping us in shape and up-to-date. Make no mistake, it's a bit of a task.

The Corpse Players

1 - Eric - (July 4 2007 - July 17 2007)

2 - Mat Brinkman - http://lambiek.net/artists/b/brinkman_mat.htm

3 - Marc Palm - http://swellzombie.blogspot.com/

4 - Mostyn - http://squatthrust.wordpress.com/

5 - Zeke Clough - http://shoogooble.blogspot.com/

6 - Barry Rodges - http://www.capeday.com/index.php/site/story/barry_rodges/

7 - Ian - http://www.greathugethings.com/

8 - David Robertson - http://berserkotron.piczo.com/?cr=1&rfm=y

9 - Ray Frenden - http://frenden.com/

10 - Chris Pottinger - http://chrispottinger.tastysoil.com/

11 - Alejandro Alvarez - http://www.mackwhite.com/BushJunta7.html

12 - Dan Steffan - http://lambiek.net/artists/s/steffan_dan.htm

13 - Sean Aaberg - http://goblinko.com/

14 - Brian Routh - http://digitalkipper.msspro.com/

15 - Aeron Alfrey - http://www.skeletoncave.blogspot.com/

16 - Ben Catmull - http://www.myspace.com/monsterparade

17 - Luke Przybylski

18 - Hans Rickheit - http://zeitgeist.numachi.com/chromefetus/

19 - Craoman - http://craoman.blogspot.com/

20 - David Paleo - http://monsterwithoutacause.blogspot.com/

21 - Brian McKenzie - http://www.bdmckenzie.blogspot.com/

22 - Matt Furie - http://mattfurie.betternonsequitur.com/

23 - Tobias Tak - http://www.tobicomix.co.uk/

24 - Jon Chandler - http://bonehousebooks.co.uk/

25 - Jeff Soto - http://www.jeffsoto.com/

26 - Michael Canich - http://uselessweaponry.blogspot.com/

27 - Shannon Smith - http://www.shannonsmith.net/

28 - Rod Mckie - http://rodmckie.blogspot.com/

29 - Peter Rapp - http://www.peterrapp.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.html

30 - Dave Bradbury

31 - Kletz

32 - Hunter - http://www.webcomicsnation.com/hunter/

33 - Giles O'Dell - http://www.zoonbats.com/

34 - empty jug

35 - blaise - http://www.slashart.com/

36 - Dimchab - http://www.noeyescabinfever.blogspot.com/

37 - ww craghead

38 - Hack - http://www.hackcartoons.com/

39 - Alex Buchet

40 - Cheese - http://www.houseoftwelve.com/

41 - M. Campos

42 - Maurizio

43 - Andrei Molotiu - http://www.blotcomics.blogspot.com/

44 - Fufu Frauenwahl - http://www.fufufrauenwahl.com/

I have already blogged on the marvelous Tobias Tak, see post below, and it is my intention, over the coming months, to blog on some, or all, of the Corpse players, in between the usual bouts of barking at the Moon.