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Here’s the part where you support your favorite comic book creators almost as much you endorse the films they help make possible.

Kelly Sue DeConnick’s husband, Matt Fraction, will be making his first appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers this Thursday, May 21.

The other guests on the show include America’s Got Talent’s Heidi Klum, and funny man Richard Lewis. If that’s not the strangest and perfect line-up to offset the slowly dying Late Show With David Letterman, then I don’t know what is.

We are confident that Fraction will be the next Harvey Pekar of late night talk show. Hopefully, he shows Meyers first hand how to be a sex criminal, the origin of Pizza Dog, and discusses the glorious and  frustrating process of creating Casanova with Brazilian twins.

Don’t miss Fraction on Thursday at 12:35 a.m. on NBC.

Huge news for fans of the Fraction-DeConnick household; Deadline reports that Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick, whose creator-owned works include Sex Criminals, Bitch Planet, Pretty Deadly, Ody-C, Casanova and more, have signed a two-year pact with Universal Television to develop their properties into television series.

Additionally, the deal includes the potential for original content as well as series based on other comic creators’ IP, all of which will fall under their Milkfed Criminal Masterminds production banner.

First up on their development docket is a television adaptation of Fraction and Chip Zdarsky‘s Eisner Award winning Sex Criminals. The duo has hired former Marvel editor Lauren Sankovitch as MCM’s Managing Editor as they make the move into the world of the small screen. They’re represented by Rothman Brecher Agency and attorney Shep Rosenman.

I was just thinking about how diverse their creator-owned set of titles are, covering a wide range of genres like exploitation, 50’s era who-dunnits?, sex comedies, westerns, euro-style sci-fi, etc. It’s a tremendous base to work from in terms of a well-rounded television line-up. Excuse me while I go silent jump around for joy in our condo.

By: Lindsey Morris

   Story: Matt Fraction

   Art: Fábio Moon

   Colors: Cris Peter

   Letters: Dustin Harbin

   Publisher: Image Comics

HARK! A new volume of Casanova has begun – the first since 2012 – and with it comes the promise of another harrowing adventure steeped in espionage, intrigue, and boobies from writer Matt Fraction and artist Fábio Moon.

Casanova Quinn (Quentin Cassiday) has been kicking around the comics world since 2006, when he hit the scene as a freelance jack-of-all-trades for any discerning client and/or worldwide spy organization. Since then he has been gainfully employed across timelines and dimensions, doing various jobs for his father’s E.M.P.I.R.E., as well as other things I’m not exactly equipped to explain because come on, this timeline is nuts.

At the beginning of this iteration, Cass is a man with no past and nothing to lose. A stroke of luck finds him employed with an older man in a similar position – acute amnesia. The rest of the story unfolds accordingly, as they hatch a plan to find out all they can about each other. For all of its separation from previous issues, this installment still finds itself planted firmly in the footing of its predecessors. The years since the last volume have apparently had no effect on the creative team, who continue to crank out work that blends seamlessly with the universe they’ve created, while also maintaining enough distance for the new story to grow.

In Acedia #1, the gorgeous pages by Moon come to the forefront of the story immediately. Cass is deranged, covered in blood and stumbling through the streets of Hollywood, California. Lit up in blues and oranges by colorist Cris Peter, this balance of warm and cool colors remains throughout the story, creating a surreal reading experience, and evoking a surprising breadth of moods.

Moon’s art is singular, blending thick and chunky linework into thin silhouettes and shapes that somehow remain elegant and defined, rather than bulky and dull. His style vacillates between great economy of line and incredible detail – always unafraid of using thick swathes of black ink wherever he deems appropriate, and to great success. The backgrounds are natural, replete with the imperfect lines that suggest the absence of a ruler, and perfectly matched to the figures in the foreground.

Character designs remain on point, especially those of the “Grey Men.” A garish pairing of geometric head-pieces and pinstripe suits, the pages with these figures stand out as some of the best in the issue. The fight between Cass and these characters is fast-paced, dynamic, and unforgiving. Rounding out the story is the final panel – an amalgamation of everything listed above. Copious black, varied line widths, and dry brush work together to create an ominous display of what’s to come.

As far as the writing goes, Fraction uses the bulk of the pages to set up the story between Cass and his employer. There are still all the trappings of a Casanova comic – dry humor, sexy encounters, ill-advised “plays on words,” etc. -  and they work as well as ever. A quote by French poet Guillame Apollinaire adds some literary levity to an otherwise straight-forward scene. So, you know, classic Fraction.

Making Acedia even more of a winner, though, is the back-up story featured at the end of the issue. Written by Michael Chabon and drawn by Gabriel Bá, The Metanauts promises to be the perfect accompaniment to its sister-story. Using the same outline as the main storyline, this short features characters both new and old, including a delightfully cynical rock journalist to whom every band is “a bunch of trumped-up corporate bullshit.”

Casanova continues to carve out its path in the comics world, holding steady to the formula that the creative team has been employing for years. “The rules are simple. The gun is always loaded. The safety is always off. The fucker always fires.”

As far as I know, I ate my first oyster at an oyster roast on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. At the time, I was a novice. I showed up, dressed up, ready to party. I didn’t realize we would be surrounded by oyster-scented mist and flying shells. I didn’t know I had to “shuck” anything. I certainly didn’t know I had to eat slimy creatures that closely resembled massive piles of snot. Most surprising, though? I loved the slimy creatures.

I soon discovered, via Pearlz on East Bay in Charleston, that I prefer oysters raw rather than roasted. (I prefer them in Oyster Shooters, too, which entails a single oyster in a shot glass of cocktail sauce and Absolute Peppar). Over the course of my two years in Charleston, I consumed more oysters than the entire land mass of the United Kingdom—where oysters are actually protected by an Act of Parliament during the spawning season.

Rumor has it oysters are aphrodisiacs. I recently read a biography of the so-called “great lover,” Casanova, by journalist Ian Kelly. (An interesting read. Made me want to go back to Venice. Check it out here.) Casanova used to eat piles of raw oysters pre-coitus, plus bottles of champagne. I don’t know much about the aphrodisiac claim. I do know that I had a craving last week that felt like pot munchies, minus the pot … and I did not hanker for Doritos; I hankered for raw oysters.

Where—in the land-locked state of Arizona—was a girl to find raw oysters? Jake took me to the grocery store, where I swore I saw some oysters, but they only had mussels. We asked the guy if we could order oysters. He priced us at over a dollar an oyster. I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet. Luckily, I did an online search, where I discovered Casey Moore’s Oyster House in Tempe.

I love Tempe, not just because it has raw oysters. I like the college town feel. I like the ASU campus. I like all the restaurants and bars spread along the two block radius of Mill Street. It feels like home to me; it feels like Athens, Ohio, in the middle of the desert. Casey Moore’s is an Irish pub—one of the most famous in Arizona, according to the website. It’s a nice little place with a dingy, dark inside bar area and a big outdoor patio covered in palm trees and umbrellas. Not classy but cute.

All I cared about were the oysters … and the Bloody Mary’s, which were excellent. I ordered a dozen oysters; nothing else. In case you’re wondering, even in a beach town like Charleston, the oysters were rarely from Charleston. The best oysters are arguably from New England, so I was okay ordering oysters in Arizona; they travel, no matter where you are.

I made my order, and then I waited. I watched the door to the kitchen, and when the little college dude brought my slimy monsters surrounded by ice chunks to our table, I wiped the drool from my chin and dug in.

How do you properly eat a raw oyster? First, you pick up the oyster on the half shell. Using the tiny fork they give you, wiggle the oyster around to make sure it is dislodged from the shell. I like to add fresh lemon juice to mine and a dash of fresh horse

Let's start with the Venetian costumer, Stefano Nicolao, because I was just about to write about him, but instead ran out to the supermarket before it closed. I dashed into the Billa, and who should be standing in the produce section, but Stefano Nicolao.

Here was our conversation:

Cat: I was just about to write about you, and here you are. I was going to write that only a man with coglioni can cry in front of an audience. And everyone clapped! When you spoke about your great appreciation for your family... it made me cry, too.

Stefano: You have to understand that I hadn't seen many of those people for 10, 20 years. And that moment... as I was speaking about my family and the culmination of 40 years of work, it just hit me...

Cat: After your speech, after the food, right before the show, I found myself sitting in the theatre next to your aunt. She told me that your mother supports you, sacrificed for you. She said that your father supports you; your daughter loves your work; she said that your wife was your assistant. She said the entire family was involved. Your aunt said that all this family energy lifts you up, up, up... and I was so moved to hear it. Because it's the opposite for me... and I imagined how different life would be to have the support of an entire family... to have all that extra energy instead of doing things on one's own. That's another reason why I was crying.

(Stefano's made costumes for Elizabeth, The Merchant of Venice, Casanova, etc., etc.)

We spoke in further detail, and then agreed that we must shop before the store closed (it was just about to close, and we were both just beginning to shop), so I zipped off past the jams.

HOW WE ARRIVED AT THAT CONVERSATION

I had an invitation to go to the Theatre of San Gallo to celebrate 25 years of the Nicolao Atelier di Stefano Nicolao, and then afterwards, to see Carnival The Show. I had been curious about Carnival, The Show, because I'd seen the advertising around town. To me, it sounded very touristy; not something that locals would be interested in. So, this is something I would not ordinarily attend, except that there was the Venetian costumer, Stefano Nicolao, before the dinner and the show. I honestly did not know what to expect... and I wasn't going to stay after Stefano Nicolao... except the dinner I was supposed to attend got confused, so at the last minute I decided to gulp down some food and stay for the show.

WITH THAT CAVEAT, I sampled some of the food after the mob had already gnawed at it, and I found it to be bland and ordinary, but served in attractive plastic tumbler things... Well, the appetizers were fine. There was plenty of wine/soda/water to drink. There were so many people attacking the food at the same time that I didn't try too hard to get any, but the little I got was lacking in flavor.

THE SHOW, on the other hand, I really enjoyed. It was unexpectedly good -- the actors were good; it was professional and enjoyable. It made me miss Venice and the way life used to be. It reminded me of a theatrical production I did long, long ago in Southern California. It was an outdoor dinner theatre, and I was playing the part of Karen Andre in Ayn Rand's play, The Night of January 16th. The food was equally strange... I can't remember, like a box lunch dinner, but the show itself was good in a dinner theater kind of way. (I was on trial for killing my lover and 12 people from the audience sat on stage as jurors and had to vote whether I was innocent or guilty every night.) Now, Carnival, The Show, has absolutely nothing in common with the Ayn Rand play except in terms of a dinner-theatre feeling. So, if you have ever been to a dinner theatre production in America, it is sort of like that.

There is a very thin plot, which is that the Atelier, or the studio of this costumer, is creating the costumes for Marchesa Luisa Casati, who lived in Palazzo dei Leoni, which is now the Guggenheim. She was having a grand ball, and running around declaring: "I want to be a living work of art." So, the actors are creating costumes and reminiscing. They say at the beginning that it is not in chronological order. It's a hodge-podge of Venetian history and I just LOVED it. Really. It was strangely moving. I sat next to another journalist, and we both were laughing and crying at the same times. There were lots of Venetians there that night because of Stefano Nicolao, who would not normally be there, so, it was a special night. I cannot judge how it is normally, but based on my experience, I would say: go there for the show, but don't expect great food.

It's a history of Venice show, and I think, actually, we should require ALL VISITORS to watch the show upon arrival. If they watched the show and made an effort to understand it, I am quite sure they would enjoy Venice a lot more.

Ciao from Venice,
Cat

P.S. I did immediately spot an error -- they have a printed Timeline in the program, and they say that "Venice was founded in 421 (conveniently on St.. Mark's Day, April 25)." Well, Venice (as we all know:) was founded on Friday, MARCH 25, 421 at the stroke of noon right downstairs at Rialto at San Giacometto. And another marvelous coincidence is that Stefano Nicolao, too, was born on March 25th!

The libraries in Victoria BC, the subject of an ongoing (166 days as of today) strike, are being closed and employees are being locked out. Here is the statement from the library

Due to the ongoing strike by CUPE 410, the Greater Victoria Public Library today announced that it will serve 72-hour lock-out notice on the union. It is anticipated that the 72-hour lock-out notice will take effect on Sunday, February 17 2008 at 5:01pm.

Here is the web site statement of the union.

In the 165 days since we started taking strike actions, the employer’s bargaining agent has made no attempt to restart negotiations. Since early in 2007, they have simply refused to discuss the major outstanding issues. Library workers experience this as a contempt for their needs, and for their contributions to the quality of life in the Capital area.

Here is a short article from the Vancouver Sun on the subject and a longer one from the Globe & Mail. Here is an column from the Victoria Times Columnist with some details about the actual money they’re talking about wagewise. One of the interesting parts of the ongoing saga is that some library workers, as part of their protests regarding promised but not delivered pay equity with other municipal workers, were waiving overdue fines for all patrons, costing the library between $40,000 and $50,000 per month. This likely endeared them to some of their patrons but was a interesting form of civil disobedience on the job. A few blogs posts on the subject here, and here. [updated because I had the title/location wrong and needed to republish]

PRISM international, the journal of contemporary literature from Canada and around the world (BC) invites entries to its short fiction contest. Grand prize: $2000; 3 runner-up prizes of $200. Entry fee: $28 (includes 1-year subscription); $7 per additional story. Deadline: January 31, 2008. More details...