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Artists of the realm, prepare to take up your swords and pencils once more! I

Here's the second part of our annual creator survey, and this time out we have some exclusive peeks at some new projects for 2016, as well as what might be hit of something cool to happen...but you'll have to read everything figure out what that is. Thanks to all for taking the time to participate in this survey especially during the busy holiday time. You can find Part 1 here.

Today is a day to send shout-outs to the Center for Cartoon Studies, located in White River Junction, VT and recognize it’s many good deeds. While my shout out should be a loving essay on how teaching comics has had a strong effect on storytelling and how the bucolic yet isolated campus in rural Vermont allows students to focus in on making comics, or the print room or the other great things about the faculty which includes James Sturm and Steve Bissette, I don’t have time for that.

Instead I will just direct you to Rob Clough’s series looking at the WORK of CCS grads (which he didn’t tag with CCS, shame shame shame), and spotlight a few of them:

• Chuck Forsman, now putting out an exciting new action focused comics series, THE REVENGER:

• Melissa Mendes, who is serializing a great comic called The Weight.

• Colleen Frakes, creator of Island Brat and much more, including StevenUniverse fan art.

• Melanie Gilman creator of the Eisner nominated webcomic As The Crow Flies

• Sean Ford creator of Only Skin and Shadow Hills.

• Eleri Mai Harris whose non fiction comics grace The Nib on numerous occasions.

• Alexis Frederick-Frost artist on the Adventures in Cartooning series.

• Sophie Goldstein, whose The Oven is coming out later this month and is amazing.

……and dozens more. I have to leave the office now or I would spend hours more looking at the great great yards from this school. Someone smarter than me needs to look at how the precepts taught at CCS have changed cartooning, and how Sturms ideas about applied cartooning are changing the business. But for today…just a shout out.

Yep, it’s our annual survey of the comics landscape, from the mainstream to the indies and everything in between. Each year we send out surveys to as wide a swath of comics pros around the world as we can muster…among the answers you’ll find lots of news of 2015 projects, predictions of the year ahead…and right off the bat some startling news from Jeff Trexler about a possible legal bombshell in 2015…and the return of Casey from James Sturm’s epochal comic strip “The Sponsor.” Hold on to your hats and let’s get going.

Jeff Trexler, lawyer

I write for The Beat and TCJ.com. My personal sites are in hibernation, but one day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back.

2015 Projects: I have an active law practice, so …

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Catching up on all the articles I planned to write based on my notes from the San Diego and New York Comic Cons. There’s some fun stuff, not all of it legal.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? The biggest legal story would have to be the Kirby settlement. That case was on its way to the same fate as previous attempts to flip work-for-hire judgments under the 1909 Copyright Act, but the denouement was straight out of a Mister Miracle comic.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? This might not be the biggest legal story, but one thing that many people don’t realize is that the Siegel and Shuster Superman lawsuits are still alive, with more decisions likely in 2015 and even 2016.

How can this be, you ask, when one of 2014’s other big stories was that the Supreme Court had dinged both of these cases?

The Siegel case situation is somewhat bizarre. You might recall that after the Supreme Court let stand the 9th Circuit’s ruling that the 2001 term sheet between DC & the Siegels was actually a final settlement, Toberoff tried to keep the case alive with a few new arguments . They weren’t particularly novel – rather basic, actually – but they were the sort of thing a lawyer typically would have tossed in the mix from the beginning. As I pointed out on The Beat, by failing to raise these arguments earlier he had actually waived them, thus illustrating one of the dangers of getting so swept up in what you might win that you lose sight of the details that can help you get there.

The court followed the same line of reasoning – arguments waived; case over. But then, at Toberoff’s request, two months later the court amended its judgment to throw in a declaratory judgment that the Siegels’ termination filing in 1999 was valid in regard to Action #1, Action #4, Superman #1 (page 36), and the first two weeks of the Superman newspaper strip. In other words, the material was officially not work for hire.

This ruling was rather unusual, given the 9th Circuit’s determination that the 2001 settlement agreement made everything afterward moot. Perhaps the judge thought that this was a harmless sop to history given the other legal hits to the Siegel, but it was at base a trap. Toberoff didn’t ask for this to make the Siegels feel good; he was setting up yet another appeal. His argument: the lower court should have exercised its discretion and considered the waived anyway. Were Toberoff to luck out and get a more sympathetic panel, it just might flip the lower court’s ruling re the Siegels claim that they voided the agreement but uphold the ruling that the termination was valid.

DC responded to this as one might expect. Since the 9th Circuit had declared everything after 2001 to be moot, the court had authority to issue a declaratory judgment that the termination filing was valid.  What’s more, DC doubled down on the problems with Toberoff’s waived arguments and returned to one of its own earlier arguments that the Siegels’ 2004 lawsuit was invalid, since it was filed a year after the statute of limitations had expired.

Will the Siegels win? Well, the case will go before a new panel so there’s always a possibility. Should they win? I’ll leave the moral and ethical questions to each of you, but legally, let’s just say that there are some judges who would find Toberoff’s appeal here to be so disrespectful of the 9th Circuit’s previous ruling and the fundamentals of procedure as to be offensive. Again, there are others that might welcome the opportunity to flip the case back to the Siegels, so we’ll just have to watch what happens.

As for the Shuster heirs/Mark Peary case, the appellant here is in fact DC Comics. On December 9th, 2014, filed notice with the 9th Circuit that it is appealing the lower court’s denial of its state law claims that Toberoff unlawfully interfered with the 1992 Shuster settlement agreement and 2001 Siegel settlement agreements. The issue, in short, is not Superman but Toberoff.

The Siegel appeal is well underway – the briefs were filed as of September, and now we wait for oral argument (if any) and the court’s ruling. The briefs in Shuster/Peary case are scheduled to be filed by July 2015.

Sarah Gaydos, editor IDW

2015 Projects: Editing: Edward Scissorhands, Star Trek, Powerpuff Girls: Super Smash Up, Disney, Infinite Loop (US release)…and more!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? I can whittle it down to three: the rise of the creator, Amazon purchasing Comixology, and the continuing rise of women as creative forces and readers.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? I *hope* it is more and more innovation on how to get more comics in the hands of new readers. I’ll certainly do my part.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Any and all Li’l Bub videos.

Eleri Mai Harris, cartoonist/editor

2015 Projects: I just finished working on an epic about bear hunting that drove me nuts

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Clearly Simon Hanselmann’s wedding to Comics at SPX in September was the society highlight of 2014? For The Nib, our story of the year was a comic by an anonymous artist about her rape

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? I’m hoping that the biggest story will be a clear shift from more traditional news media outlets to creating dedicated comics sections, as Fusion did with Jen Sorensen in 2014.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Reading the entire Tony Edward’s Captain Goodvibes collection on the beach in Australia in January.

Alison Sampson, artist

2015 Projects: I’m drawing a creator-owned book with Steve Niles- Winnebago Graveyard is a classic scary story. Our Think of a City project will run through all of 2015 and into 2016. Right at this minute, I’m working on a cover, and I’m hoping to be doing more design work and illustration including more unorthodox comic pages, next year

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Rights ownership leading to big financial wins for some- Image creators, Boom! Studios, Marvel films, and the rise of the comics-to films and tv interface.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Fallout from the rise of creator-owned work and the increased confidence around it: previously silent voices being heard, and the rise of more genuinely diverse work from companies known for their superheroes.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Drawing to expand the form of comics, and I’d like to visit the US again. The guilty pleasure would be eating seafood every day when we do get to the US.

Jim Zub, writer

2015 Projects: Wayward and Skullkickers for Image, Samurai Jack and Dungeons & Dragons for IDW, Conan-Red Sonja for Dark Horse.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Diversity in comics, both in the fictional characters we read and the creators who weave their stories. The discussion of people of color, gender roles, LGBT, sexism, and our expanding social consciousness reflected itself in mainstream news and filtered down to the way the comic industry sees itself. It’s slowly changing the business in a good way and I hope the trend continues.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Reboots of reboots. Both DC and Marvel are trying to find the magic mix of new #1’s/new directions while clinging to their legacies with old + new universe crashing crossover events. It looks like they’re both going to reach critical mass in 2015 and seeing if they succeed or fail will be fascinating stuff that people will analyze and discuss for years to come.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Chip Zdarsky’s Howard the Duck series. I’m curious if Chip’s no holds barred humor will flourish in the Marvel Universe or if they’ll have to sand off the edges.

Michael Davis, artist/publisher

2015 Projects: Milestones2: African Americans In Comics, Pop Culture and Beyond:curator Dec 2015  -the immediate squeal to the wildly successful galley show Milestones:African Americans in Comics, blah, blah, blah.

The show opened Dec. 2014 for a 4 month run and was immediately extended. Making it one of, if not the most successful shows at The Geppi Entertainment Museum.

The Hidden Beach Project Winter 2015: a co venture with Hidden Beach Records. A never seen before merging of music & comics

The Underground 2015? Really? A story of the Underground Railroad—over 10 year odyssey written and illustrated by Michael Davis Dark Horse Comics

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014?  Spiderwoman’s ass
What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? The Static Shock Live Action show
What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? The reaction of Variant Comics when they get called on the carpet legally. They continue to leave up untrue information and have been asked repeatedly to correct the issue.

Casey Gilly, journalist

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? First ever Bay Area Comic Arts Festival

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Treatment of women in the comics industry.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? More pictures of Justin Jordan’s cat, Tom Waits.

Ivan Brandon, writer
2015 Projects: DRIFTER

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014?  WOMEN. The fictional women inside the comics, the real-life women crafting their stories, the readers that made all of that possible. Women dominated the sales charts on original content and corporate properties and dragged the industry kicking and screaming into the present.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? I’m gonna go with women again. I haven’t seen this kind of fire in the audience in my whole career.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015?  Can I say Howard the Duck? I’m not really feeling guilty about it, but I’m pretty sure Chip will figure something out.

Calista Brill, Senior Editor at First Second
2015 Projects: Jay Hosler’s amazing LAST OF THE SANDWALKERS! It’s like Watership Down with insect scientists!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Ms Marvel! And by extension the continuing (if grudging) trend of mainstream comics inviting a wider variety of readers into the club.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Scott McCloud’s THE SCULPTOR.
What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Finally catching up on SLEEPY HOLLOW!

Joe Keatinge, writer
2015 Projects: Writer of Shutter and Tech Jacket, for Image Comics

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? It’s a tie between The Walking Dead show having more viewers than NFL football and Raina Telgemeier changing the definition of what a “mainstream” comic is in the 21st century by consistently dominating the New York Times bestsellers list with multiple perennial titles.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? The Walking Dead show and Raina Telgemeier announcing a joint Presidential run for 2016.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? I don’t like the idea of “guilty pleasure” as people should just like what they like, but in terms of just things I’m looking forward to in 2015 — I am excited Master Keaton’s getting released so I can resume having a new (to me) serialized Urasawa book every other month.

James Sturm, cartoonist, educator

2015 Projects: I’m working on a kamishibai project in collaboration with a performer and a kid’s book. I just wrapped up a nine-page comic for the D&Q 25th anniversary book—The Sponsor comic was the first two pages.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? The story I am most fascinated by for 2014 and 2015 is seeing how comics are spreading into the world-at-large as an indispensible tool for communication and education. Graphics medicine, comics journalism, and graphic facilitation are just three examples of ways that the language of comics is being applied in various fields.

The other thing that is very exciting: how much truly fantastic work is being produced right now. It’s hard to keep up.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Guilty pleasure and masochistic pleasure: following the Knicks and the Mets as they go from awful to awesome (in my heart I am an optimist).

Giulie Speziani, writer

2015 Projects: A few titles coming out in the new year that I can’t mention yet.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? The Milo Manara Spider-Woman variant cover. It was an extremely divisive topic–everyone had a strong opinion about it. People got in heated debates about the pose, the artist’s history, what it means for women in comics etc. My twitter feed was very entertaining that week.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Something Star Wars related.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Mad Max: Fury Road. Judging from the trailer it looks over-the-top amazing so I don’t feel that guilty about it.

Ian Harker, cartoonist/publisher
2015 Projects: GHOULANOIDS – Derek Ballard

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Breakdown Press

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Emily Carroll

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Potential BLADES & LAZERS Special Edition

Jeffrey Brown, cartoonist (Photo by Jill Liebhaber)
2015 Projects: Darth Vader and Friends will be out in April, while Jedi Academy 3 comes out in the fall. Currently working on a middle grade series about Neanderthals.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? I don’t even know, because the past few years all of the biggest stories in comics are overshadowed by film and TV stories related to comics adaptations. So the biggest comics stories are actually really, really tiny.  So I’m just going to say Mike Dawson’s essay about what it means to ‘make it’ in comics.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Instead of big budget film adaptations of comics, independent producers will begin adapting single comic pages into youtube videos.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? Episode VII

Van Jensen, writer

2015 Projects: I’m working on The Flash and Green Lantern Corps for DC, and I’ll have a new creator-owned series coming out from Dark Horse, plus the occasional bit of journalism.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2014? Honestly, I have no clue. The deeper I am in the comics world, the less I feel like I have a grasp on it. It felt like a very fractured year, with lots of really excellent books and also a lot of noise. It did seem like maybe we crossed some kind of tipping point with new audiences finding and consuming comics in really large numbers, and that influence starting to spread across even mainstream books. But I think it’ll be some time before we can really process that.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2015? Other than the DC move to Burbank?

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2015? I’m really looking forward to our son starting daycare so I can have more writing time, but I feel incredibly guilty over that. So it goes.

On Monday, James Sturm, cartoonist and director of the Center for Cartoon Studies, posted a cartoon at The Nib called “The Sponsor”. I’m sure if you are a cartoonist you’ve already read it, since it was the talk of the town for a few days. Basically it concerns cartoonists, jealousy, the low bar for success, anxiety over one’s abilities, tumblr hits, Kickstarter and more. All in 24 panels. I’d call that a good job.

The basic conceit is that as in various 12-step programs, (the subtitle is “The first step is admitting you have a problem”) cartoonists have sponsors they can call in moments of stress. A young cartoonist named Casey calls his sponsor, Alan, in the middle of the night to fret about another cartoonist named Tessa who has a six figure Kickstarter, a line out the door at a Rocketship signing,  and a book deal with D&Q. Tessa’s success sends Casey into such a tizzy that he has to work things out and consider grad school, despite Alan’s insistence that Crumb never thought about hits. And despite his “stay strong” rhetoric to Casey, Alan soon picks up the phone to call his OWN sponsor.

Of course we all know that judging your own success by someone else’s is a short cut to despair. By the same token, we’ve all done what Casey does, looked at other people’s book deals, Facebook likes, retweets or dinner companions and found ourselves feeling shitty about someone else’e\s perceived success. It’s human nature. You do it, I do it, we all do it. And then, if we want to actually be a success in some measure, we move on.

I know this cartoon ignited much talk in cartooning circles, but the one I caught spun out of this one by Colleen Frakes:

…I have a lot of respect for James, but all I see here are two white dudes complaining about a woman in comics. https://t.co/LB6KKefM9r

— ColleenFrakes (@ColleenFrakes) November 3, 2014

You can see the responses from MK Reed, Johanna Draper Carlson, Mike Dawson, Alison Wilgus and more. To be honest, the gender question here is, for once, a red herring. I think Sturm’s satire—and it is a satire, not an autobiographical comic—was based on the image of two white guys fretting over the success of a younger female cartoonist. That was kinda the POINT. This cartoon was about the toxic effects of jealousy not about gender relations—that the more successful, nimble cartoonist is a woman backs up setting as the twilight of the “pap pap era” that is implied by the reference to Crumb.

Another subtext of “The Sponsor” is that Alan and Casey are only reacting to the external aspects of Tessa’s career, and eschewing an examination of the artistic merits of her work that might lead to inspiration as opposed to mere envy. We get better at what we do by studying better things, and applying what makes them better to our own work, in a sensible way. Easier said than done, I know.

BTW, for those who think this is a lonely cry for acceptance by a put upon white male cartoonist, more of those thoughts are publicly expressed in this Metafilter thread, including guesses as to the real Tessa and so on. Come on people…IT’S A SATIRICAL STORY. I am well aware that all art is filtered through the social status of the creator, but but interpreting all storytelling as confirmation bias is the ultimate no-win situation. Can you imagine if Dan Clowes’ “Dan Pussey” came out today?

No, “The Sponsor” is about insecurity and the trivial uncontrollable fretting that destroys your own creativity. A few years ago I linked to this piece by Rob Liefeld called “How to Beat The Haters”, and you know, if Rob Liefeld can do it any one can—although external criticism is far from the corrosive internal struggle discussed in “The Sponsor.” But some of the same rules apply. You can only control one person’s work—your own. And yes, I am aware of the irony of quoting a cartoonist whose entire career seems oblivious to the painful self-examination Casey and Alan are dealing with.  The way forward lies somewhere in the middle.

Kind of tangential to this, but I’ve updated the Beat’s “How to Get Into Comics and Survive Once You’re There” page with a few links. It’s still only an outline. Share more resources or self-help or ideas for what Casey and Alan should do in the comments.

And a final PS: Man, the Nib is awesome. That is all.

[T]his conversation about making ends meet as a cartoonist has always been around (and something that I’ve explored before, re: Market Day) and seems to be on the forefront of people’s minds. At SPX, with SO many cartoonists around, it will certainly be an undercurrent. So this pamphlet is a part of that conversation.

And here’s a preview of what everyone will be talking about. 

COMICS! remember that? First Second has announced its Winter ’15 slate, which includes not only the LONG AWAITED new book by Scott McCloud, but new books by Jay Hosler, James Sturm, Andi Watson and the English language debut of Bastian Vives’ very popular (on the continent) Last Man series. And the next volume in George O’Conner’s Olympians series.

Hosler, in articular, is a scientist/cartoonist whose Clan Apis of years ago was one of the first modern “practical” comics, and his work crosses over between education and entertainment without slighting either. Andi Watson is also a very prolific and charming cartoonist whose work we haven’t seen from a major publisher in a while.

Here’s some capsule loglines and covers:

The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud – we can’t wait to share this wonderful graphic novel full of magical realism with you!  We recommend you check out what the New York Times had to say about it.  Or USA Today.

The Last of the Sandwalkers, by Jay Hosler – this world full of beetles is about to discover that other new, dangerous, and exciting life forms exist.

Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula, by Andi Watson – when Princess Decomposia begins to run the underworld, she’s going to need some help . . . and who better than a vampire chef?

Sleepless Knight, by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost – the first Adventures in Cartooning picture book comic is adorable, and full of knights and marshmallows and adventure!

Ares: Bringer of War, by George O’Connor – it’s the Trojan War, from the perspective of the pantheon of Greek gods instead of the mortals.

The Stranger, by Bastien Vivès, Michaël Sanlaville, and Balak – the first volume of the Last Man series, these books are filled with magical-medieval combat possibly in another dimension.

Reminder: Other :01 Upcoming 2014 Titles

(there’s still some of this year left to publish books in, it turns out)

The Shadow Hero, by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew; How the World Was, by Emmanuel Guibert; The Zoo Box, by Ariel Cohn and Aron Steinke; Julia’s House for Lost Creatures, by Ben Hatke; The Wrenchies, by Farel Dalrymple; Above the Dreamless Dead: World War I in Poetry and Comics; The Rise of Aurora West, by Paul Pope, JT Petty, and David Rubin; Olympians Boxed Set, by George O’Connor; In Real Life, by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang.

What a great idea for a comic programming focus: this year’s Small PressE Expo, to be held September 13-14 in Bethesda, MD, will spotlight the history of alt-weekly comics, a powerful if now vanished, platform that saw creators such as Jules Feiffer, Matt Groening and Lynda Barry emerge along with dozens of other.

And to kick things off, two of those Feiffer and Barry—and Onion/Stranger co founder James Sturm are the first three announced guests.

For decades, alt.weekly newspapers such as the Village Voice and the LA Weekly showcased alternative cartoonists, many of them political, such as Ruben Bolling and Tom Tomorrow. But other strips that flourished in this venue include Maakies by Tony Millionaire, Kaz’s Underworld, and more more. But as the internet destroyed the advertising base that supported these papers, these cartoonists adapted to the web or other mediums. BUt the importance of the work and careers developed in this venue is well worthy of festival examination.

Guest bios:

Nearly seventy years ago, a teenage Jules Feiffer entered the comics world as an assistant to the famous Will Eisner. He soon made a name for himself via his ground-breaking comic strip Feiffer, which ran weekly in the Village Voice for over forty years. Mr. Feiffer and his eponymous strip is considered the Godfather of the alt-weekly newspaper comic.

Active as a cartoonist, playwright, novelist, children’s book author, screenwriter and professor, Mr. Feiffer’s incredible career has included an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters & the Comic Book Hall of Fame, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the National Cartoonists Society. He will be at SPX 2014 to sign his latest graphic novel, Kill My Mother, which will be released this summer from the Liveright Division of W.W. Norton.

In 1979, Lynda Barry’s seminal Ernie Pook’s Comeek began appearing in the alt-weekly The Chicago Reader. For nearly two decades, her comics — which appeared in over seventy newspapers nationwide —  inspired several generations of independent cartoonists who saw themselves in her characters, and recognized their struggles in her stories.

Since retiring the strip in 2008, Ms. Barry has been active as a teacher running workshops for hundreds of students a year and doing her best to show people that everybody can be creative. She is now an assistant professor at the Department of Art at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Advance copies of her book, due out in October of this year from Drawn & Quarterly, Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor about teaching art to all skill levels, will be available at SPX 2014.

Co-founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies James Sturm has an amazing resume. In addition to the ground-breaking school he started, Sturm co-founded The Onion as well as The Stranger, Seattle’s legendary alt-weekly newspaper, where he served as the comics editor. Mr. Sturm worked with Art Spiegleman on ‘Raw’ in the 90’s, and was a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Mr. Sturm also found time to put out graphic novels such as Market Day from Drawn & Quarterly, and The Golem’s Mighty Swing on his own imprint, Bear Bones Press. A true champion of comics, Mr. Sturm has won both an Eisner Award, and a Xeric grant. In addition, his writings and works have been published in The New York Times and The New Yorker.

via Small Press Expo Announces Guests Jules Feiffer, Lynda Barry and James Sturm – [email protected] – Gmail.

BY JEN VAUGHN – Read it and weep! Go have yourself a good cry (probably at a Disney movie). In the tradition of occasionally free newsprint tabloid comics like the one-shot Caboose and quarterly Smoke Signal, a collaborative comic will be available this weekend at MoCCA! Official press release below:

The word “comic” has always been a bit of misnomer and The Cartoon Crier hopes to set the record straight. Sorrow and woe is the focus of this free 36-page newspaper tabloid that highlights the work of members of The National Cartoonists Society and of The Center for Cartoon Studies’ community.

The Cartoon Crier will premiere on Saturday, April 28 at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival (MoCCA) in New York City.

The Cartoon Crier features the saddest strips from iconic comics like Family Circus, Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, B.C., and For Better and For Worse. The Cartoon Crier also includes comics by Ivan Brunetti, Mell Lazarus, Melissa Mendes, Joe Lambert, Tom Gammill, Hilary Price, Laura Park, Richard Thompson, and Mo Willems as well as new work from the paper’s editors Cole Closser, R. Sikoryak, and James Sturm.

The Cartoon Crier will be available as a free download on May 1 from cartoonstudies.org.

—

Jen Vaughn is ready to weep tears in four colors: CMYK.

Nursery Rhyme Comics
Edited by Chris Duffy
Introduction by Leonard S. Marcus
$18.99
ISBN: 978-1-59643-600-8
Ages 9-12
On shelves October 11, 2011

Nursery rhymes. What’s up with that? (I feel like a stand up comedian when I put it that way). They’re ubiquitous but nonsensical. Culturally relevant but often of unknown origins. Children’s literary scholar Leonard Marcus ponders the amazing shelf life of nursery rhymes himself and comes up with some answers. Why is it that they last as long as they do in the public consciousness? Marcus speculates that “the old-chestnut rhymes that beguile in part by sounding so emphatically clear about themselves while in fact leaving almost everything to our imagination” leave themselves open to interpretation. And who better to do a little interpreting than cartoonists? Including as many variegated styles as could be conceivably collected in a single 128-page book, editor Chris Duffy plucks from the cream of the children’s graphic novel crop (and beyond!) to create a collection so packed with detail and delight that you’ll find yourself flipping to the beginning to read it all over again after you’re done. Mind you, I wouldn’t go handing this to a three-year-old any time soon, but for a certain kind of child, this crazy little concoction is going to just the right bit of weirdness they require.

Fifty artists are handed a nursery rhyme apiece. The goal? Illustrate said poem. Give it a bit of flair. Put in a plot if you have to. So it is that a breed of all new comics, those of the nursery ilk, fill this book. Here at last you can see David Macaulay bring his architectural genius to “London Bridge is Falling Down” or Roz Chast give “There Was a Crooked Man” a positive spin. Leonard Marcus offers an introduction giving credence to this all new coming together of text and image while in the back of the book editor Chris Duffy discusses the rhymes’ history and meaning. And as he says in the end, “We’re just letting history take its course.”

In the interest of public scrutiny, the complete list of artists on this book consists of Nick Abadzis, Andrew Arnold, Kate Beaton, Vera Brosgol, Nick Bruel, Scott Campbell, Lilli Carre, Roz Chast, JP Coovert, Jordan Crane, Rebecca Dart, Eleanor Davis, Vanessa Davis, Theo Ellsworth, Matt Forsythe, Jules Feiffer, Bob Flynn, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Ben Hatke, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Lucy Knisley, David Macaulay, Mark Martin, Patrick McDonnell, Mike Mignola, Tony Millionaire, Tao Nyeu, George O’Connor, Mo Oh, Eric Orchard, Laura Park, Cyril Pedrosa, Lark Pien, Aaron Renier, Dave Roman, Marc Rosenthal, Stan Sakai, Richard Sala, Mark Siegel, James Sturm, Raina Telgemeier, Craig Thompson, Richard Thompson, Sara Varon, Jen Wang, Drew Weing, Gahan Wilson, Gene Luen Yang, and Stephanie Yue (whew!). And as with any collection, some of the inclusions are going to be stronger than others. Generally speaking if fifty people do something, some of them are going to have a better grasp on the process than others. That said, only a few of these versions didn’t do it for me. At worst the versions were mediocre. At best they went in a new direction with their mat

BY JEN VAUGHN – Vermont cartoonist James Sturm wrote an insightful piece on submitting cartoons to the New Yorker posted on the Slate. As a cartoonist or unfortunately termed ‘graphic novelist,’ Sturm is used to drawing stories in the long term, stretching a few hundred pages, panel upon panel upon panel upon YES, panel. How Sturm spent his summer vacation was a cartoon a day to build up a keeper-portfolio for The New Yorker. Sturm relearned to let go of the beats you find in a long-form comic to sketch loosely and effectively situations right after that something funny, something intangible occurred. He includes many of his cartoons in the article including this close-to-home joke and one of my favorites: when the caption is recycled for a different situation.

Now I won’t ruin the article for you but Sturm did the numbers and basically went to the office with his portfolio along with “50 regular New Yorker cartoonists who submit 10 cartoons each week. That’s 500 cartoons vying for about 12 to 20 slots.” What may have eventually felt absurd to Sturm is still an inspiring journey to most cartoonists. Getting a cartoon accepted to the New Yorker is a milestone for some people but at one point so was getting into Nickelodeon magazine or for that matter, getting a company to publish your own work. Kudos to Sturm for his open door, open heart and keep on swingin’ for those fences (baseball metaphor mine).

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Jen Vaughn was recently spotted diving off the Floating Bridge by New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren, who recognized her but commented that she had more clothes on the last time they met.

(via How Hard Is It To Get a Cartoon Into The New Yorker? - By James Sturm - Slate Magazine)

James Sturm writes about his experiences drawing and submitting cartoons to the New Yorker.

Ben Towle writes on his site:

I’m currently teaching an Introduction to Sequential Art class for The Savannah College of Art and Design and the primary text for the class is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. There’s no denying the importance of this text and I gain new insights on comics every time I read it.  I think, though, that it’s important to question and think critically about works likeUnderstanding Comics and not simply accept them as gospel because they’re presented to you as being The Text. To encourage such thinking among my students, whenever I teach a class that has McCloud’s book on the reading list, I always have my students also read Art Baxter and James Sturm’s 1998 response to the book: a short seven-page comic called A Response to Chapter Nine : Build a Beach Head, which ran in The Comics Journal #211 (April, 1999).

With James Sturm’s and Art Baxter’s permission, he has posted the full comic online, along with new thoughts by both creators.

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you make a living from producing art. And there’s also a good chance you struggle to make an honest living doing what you love.

James Sturm’s new graphic novel Market Day, on the surface, is about a eastern European Jewish craftsman at the dawn of the industrial revolution, struggling to make ends meet and provide for his family the only way he knows how — weaving hand-crafted artisan rugs.

It’s a heartbreaking tale, made even more heartbreaking by its relevance to today’s shrinking markets for craftspeople, artists, illustrators, and of course, cartoonists. The dying newspaper and magazine industries that once made celebrities out of cartoonists, are certainly represented here as the stores and marketplace sellers who can no longer afford to buy and sell handmade goods. To be sure, the book is dedicated in part “to all my fellow cartoonists”.

That Sturm can offer such a seemingly bleak outlook on the state of art vs. commerce, and at the same time usher in a new wave of young cartoonists each year through his school, The Center for Cartoon Studies, seems somewhat of a contradiction. “Here’s your diploma. Oh by the way, read this story I wrote about how you won’t be able to feed your family.”

But the ray of light here, is that Sturm is a true believer in craft, skill, and dedication to one’s life’s work. Market Day suggests that there has always been a struggle between artists and the economies that threaten how they make a living. And more than that, it suggests that perseverance and purpose are qualities that can’t be understated.

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Tags: Art, Business, Comics, James Sturm