This Month
Steve Greenberg
Steve Greenberg was a speaker (on editorial cartooning) at the Associated Collegiate Press Spring National College Media Conference, held in Long Beach, CA.
“My presentation was on why I still love and believe in this art and journalism form and why those in attendance should too. And why this is both the worst time ever (staff jobs are mostly gone) and the best time ever (more diversity and formats and far greater audiences) to be doing this.
“Ironically this happened on the same day as a fellow editorial cartoonist announced he was cutting back to one cartoon per week, tired of the grind and no longer loving the cartooning. He has had steady daily work and deadlines for 40 or so years, while my situation has had far more major bumps in the road and I only draw 1 to 3 cartoons most weeks now, so I haven’t had the exact same deadline grind. But
I was in love with editorial cartooning as a college student, and still am despite thefield’s precarious decline in paying, full-time staff newspaper positions.
“Even when I retire from my day job, I hope to keep cartooning, for many years, as long as I still have the ability and some kind of forum for it.”
Todd McFarlane
Todd McFarlane celebrates his birthday March 16 (1961).
The Canadian-born comic book creator is best known for his work on The Amazing Spider-Man and the superhero horror-fantasy series Spawn.
In 1992 he helped form Image Comics. More recently he has focused on McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment.
Will Eisner
Will Eisner Week at the Comic-Con Museum
Comic-Con International sponsored a day of panels at San Diego’s Comic-Con Museum exploring Eisner, his life, creative output, and lasting legacy. CBLDF took part in the discussions.
Speakers include Jeff Trexler and Betsy Gomez of CBLDF, members from Comics@SDSU, and local comics legends. All the panels were free with admission to the museum.
Penstuff, the monthly newsletter
Penstuff, the monthly newsletter of Cartoonists Northwest is going to cease publishing its printed edition with our next, (April 2022) issue being the final one for the foreseeable future.
There have been printed monthly CNW newsletters since the 1980s, an almost unbroken streak of cartoon-related art and articles. Over that time the world has changed, more and more media content is published as pixels on screen rather than in ink on paper. It is not an ending, but an evolution. Please come along with us.
WonderCon
WonderCon takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center a few blocks from The Happiest Place on Earth on April 1-3.
It’s a well-run convention with great panels and exhibit hall.
Support Your Local Comic Book Store!
Atomic Comics
4020 S. Steele St. Tacoma, WA 98409 Phone: 253.472.1908
Email
Store Hours:
Monday-Saturday: 11am-7pm
Sunday: Noon-6pm
This store is half comics / half toys, and some amazing merchandise. The comic selection is impressive and well organized. If you’re a fan, you’ll be here a while!
Best of the Northwest – March 2022
Maus
Maus by Art Spiegelman is an Amazon bestseller after Tennessee School District restricts access
The McMinn County School Board voted unanimously on Jan. 10 to remove “Maus” from eighth grade language arts curriculum due to concerns about “inappropriate language” and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.
Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for the work that tells the story of his Jewish parents living in 1940s Poland and depicts him interviewing his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Ready for more Rocky & Bullwinkle?
Jay Ward Productions has struck a pact with Wildbrain covering distribution, production, and licensing for new content based on: George of the Jungle, Mister Peabody & Sherman, Dudley Do-Right, & Super Chicken.
Seattle Librarian Worries About Recent Wave of Book Challenges
Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl is raising her concerns on the recent wave of book challenges in western Washington and across the country.
Recently the Kent School District announced the review of two books at a middle school library after a student raised concerns about whether the books are appropriate.
In January, Washington’s Mukilteo School District – after a single request — announced ”To Kill a Mockingbird” would be removed from the ninth-grade required reading list.
“It’s absolutely a slippery slope because, I as a librarian, there are books that I wish we didn’t have,” said Pearl, “But I know those books have to be there because a library is a place where all experiences can be found.”
Pearl worries challenges to books are becoming more common. “It makes the world of the reader, the potential reader, narrower. If you’re just reading books that mirror your own experiences you’re not growing,”
Support Your Local Comic Book Store!
Hills of Comics
125 E. Main Street
Auburn, WA 98002Phone: 253.333.8841
Email
Store Hours:
Monday-Thursday: 1pm — 9pm
Friday: 1pm — 11pm
Saturday: 1pm — 9pm
Sunday: 1pm — 9pm
The store covers a wide selection of comics of all kinds it’s not hard to stay awhile searching for the right comic. The place is fairly clean which is always a welcoming feeling.
Best of the Northwest – February 2022
Correction to Last Month’s Meeting Review:
The panel and Chinese dinner with Mary Fleener happened during San Diego Comic Fest (“which we all highly recommend”, says Donna Barr) and not San Diego Comic Con.
Lauren Tarshis
A gripping graphic novel adaptation of Lauren Tarshis’s bestselling I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967, with text adapted by Georgia Ball and art by Berat Pekmezci.
The book comes out April 22nd and features eleven-year-old Melody Vega, the first female protagonist of the I Survived series.
San Diego Comic Fest
Join us at the friendly, intimate Comic Convention experience as we celebrate Gene Roddenberry.
Guests include: Mary Fleener, Trina Robbins, Steve Leialoha, Scott Shaw!, Rob Salkowitz, Bill Stout, Wendy & Richard Pini, Mike Royer, Marv Wolfman, and Guest of Honor Bill Sienkiewicz.
Suspended Animation
Prior to An American Tail, the feature Satyrday began development at Don Bluth Studios based on the book by Stephen Bauer. A strange tale of the last human, living in a world of mysticism and darkness, which Bluth later stated would not transfer well to animation.
Miracleman
Cult-favorite British comic book superhero, Miracleman, is getting his most famous stories collected in a massive omnibus.
Scheduled to go on sale in September 2022, Marvel Comics’ Miracleman Omnibus will collect the ’80s reboot by Alan Moore & artists Gary Leach, Alan Davis, Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben, as well as the first two Miracleman stories in the Marvel Comics era.
Originally conceived as a UK equivalent to Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel, Miracleman is a mild-mannered reporter named Michael Moran who can transform into a superhero when he utters the word ‘Kimota!’
Support Your Local Comic Book Store!
Ancient Comics
14439 Ambaum Boulevard Southwest, #1423
Burien, WA 98166
Phone: 206.243.2002
Email: ancientcomics@hotmail.comStore Hours:
Mon-Fri: 10am-8pmSat-Sun: 10am–7pm
Ancient Comics sells comics from the 1940s to current, affordable recession buster comics for as little as 25 cents, trade paperbacks and supplies, investments and Magic the Gathering. Back issue expert! Lowest prices guaranteed!
The New Gag Recap
Longtime Cartoonists Northwest member Rollin Zawistowski reminds us The New Gag Recap is alive and kicking!
Issue #96 (September 2021) contains forty-five (45) pages of valuable information for the professional cartoonist.
What the heck is the New Gag Recap? No, it is not some kind of a reflux disorder. It is actually an updated version of the cartoonist trade journal that began back in the 1950s and was a staple for cartoonists/gag writers everywhere.
The previous Gag Recap publication ceased in 2012 with the passing of the Recap’s last Editor, Bill Keough. The current New Gag Recap launched to worldwide acclaim in October 2013.
The New Gag Recap is delivered monthly by email. It is a comprehensive roundup of the latest cartoons published. The New Gag Recap will also include information on new and existing markets for cartoonists and writers.
The Best of the Northwest
Ellen Forney
Ellen Forney “Walking Fingers” art installation
Capital Hill Light Rail Station
The Ditko estate
For far too long, the creators of comic book superheroes have watched their work being exploited for billions of dollars by corporations with deep pockets and lawyers. What did the men and women who wrote and drew the adventures of your favorite costumed adventurers get? Too often, too little, that may change.
The estate of Steve Ditko, genius co-creator of Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and sundry other Marvel and DC Comics heroes and villains from the 1960s to the 1990s, has served a notice of copyright termination to Marvel Characters Inc. (owned by the Walt Disney Company) announcing that it will reclaim the late artist’s stake in his multibillion-dollar body of work when the copyright expires after June 2023. Joining the Ditko estate are Larry Lieber, 89, a longtime Marvel writer (and brother to Marvel’s most famous editor in chief, Stan Lee), and the heirs of Gene Colan, Don Heck and Don Rico — co-creators of Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye and The Falcon.
It’s important to state at the outset: The Ditko estate isn’t trying to stop Marvel from making more Spider-Man movies or television shows or underpants. It simply wants a fair share of the profits.
David DePatie
Oscar winning animation producer David DePatie passed away peace-fully at his home in Gig Harbor, WA on September 23rd, at age 91.
David DePatie began his career at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1961 as Cartoon Production Executive. With Friz Freling he formed DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, famous for the Pink Panther cartoons. Marvel animation productions was next, then he worked at Hanna-Barbera until he retired.
DePatie also created Charlie the Tuna television commercials at D-PE, the animated opening credits for I Dream of Jeannie, the animated sequences for 1969s tv comedy My World and Welcome To It, two Dr. Seuss tv specials after MGM/Chuck Jones production ceased, and a series of new Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons.
HIs time at Warner Bros. included the “end days of WB animation” producing the final Bugs Bunny theatrical cartoons of that era, and produced The Adventuresof the Road Runner and animated commercials.
Support Your Local Comic Book Store
Destiny City Comics 218 Saint Helens Avenue
Tacoma, WA 98402
Phone: 253.234.7112
Email: EthanHD@destinycitycomics.com
Open Hours: Tue thru Sat:1pm to 6pm
WE’RE OPEN! Thank you to everyone who supported us while our doors were closed during this pandemic. We couldn’t have made it through without your curbside and mail-out orders. The past few months were a lesson that not only is Tacoma a tight-knit community, but that Destiny City Comics itself is a close community of readers, artists, and fans of the genre, and the store itself is the main hub for all that.
Mushy stuff aside, our doors are open again. We’re still happy to ship you comic books or graphic novels to your door and offer curbside pick-up.
IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN
In recent months the CBLDF has received multiple reports of graphic novel challenges at public schools and libraries:
Attacks on Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer have gone viral in social media and school board meetings across the U.S., from a wealthy Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. to Huntington Beach, CA.
An online petition against Jerry Craft’s New Kid and Class Act temporarily succeeded in canceling an author event and getting the books removed from a Texas school library. While these decisions were ultimately reversed, the petition’s leader insists that the campaign against these books is “just getting warmed up” • Derf Backderf’s My Friend Dahmer and other graphic novels have been the subject of a sustained challenge in Leander, Texas.
Yet another school district in Texas has banned Cathy G. Johnson’s The Breakaways .
An initiative in Bloomington, Illinois is targeting no fewer than ten graphic novels and manga because they allegedly contain “questionable material” and “present fantasy as fact” . Even Gene Luen Yang’s Superman Smashes the Klan has been condemned as obscene for depicting Superman as a hero who fights against racism.
The visual nature of the comic arts has once more made graphic novels, manga, and other comics media the target of a widespread purge, with some activists even arguing that comics should be banned as inherently inferior to ostensibly more literate classics composed solely of text. However, as new board member Joseph Illidge observed in our Defending Comics Today panel at New York Comic-Con, these attacks reflect a growing recognition of comics’ true power.
More here
Best of the Northwest
Ditko Con 2021
Ditko Con 2021featuring Mark Ditko (nephew)
Hometown Heroes – Steve Ditko Exhibit and Ditko 2021 Mini-Con at the Bottle Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
“How do you memorialize a person who was principally opposed to publicity? That’s the current unenviable task faced by the Steve Ditko estate, spearheaded bythe artist’s very motivated and pleasant nephew, Mark Ditko.“
How Do I Find A Comic Book Store?
Scott & Georgia Ball
Scott & Georgia Ball doings
Strips, blogs, news, reviews, & more!
Visit • Click • Read • Enjoy!
Fantagraphics
Fantagraphics upcoming events:
Saturday, Oct 16 @ 7PM PDT
Simon Hanselmann (Crisis Zone) at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival – virtual
Monday, Oct 18 @ 7PM PDT
Miranda Tacchia (Unimpressed) in conversation with Aminder Dhaliwal (Cyclopedia Exotica) at Skylight Books – virtual
Saturday, Oct 23 @ 5PM PDT
Miranda Tacchia, Unimpressed Exhibition and Signing
Gallery Nucleus 210 East Main St, Alhambra
Tuesday, Nov 9 @ 5PM PST
Ed Piskor (Red Room) in conversation with Jim Rugg (Street Angel) at Floating World Comics – virtual
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby on Jeopardy!
September 30, 2021 episode
