§ Frank Santoro continues his interview with Ben Katchor

§ SFGate looks at the Monsters of Webcomics show at Cartoon Art Museum, which certainly does sound kinda epoch-defining:

Just as the underground comix movement liberated cartoonists to express alternative viewpoints and cover controversial subjects not found in the traditional comic strips of mainstream newspapers, the Internet provides Webcomic cartoonists an avenue to do the same and flourish. It also gives them the ability to publish their unedited work immediately and potentially reach millions of readers.
Images
“Slow Wave” by Jesse Reklaw can be seen in the “Monsters …This strip by Nicholas Gurewitch is among those featured … View Larger Images

The Cartoon Art Museum’s exhibition, “Monsters of Webcomics,” explores this cultural phenomenon. It features nine comics – from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels – by artists Kate Beaton, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Dorothy Gambrell, Nicholas Gurewitch, Jenn Manley Lee, Dylan Meconis, Chris Onstad, Jesse Reklaw and Spike, along with cartoonist-created tutorials.


§ Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Bizenghast, the long running OEL manga, now reaching its sixth volume.

Even though I’ve never read earlier volumes in the series, I figured the longevity deserved recognition, so I’d check it out. And I can see why Bizenghast has found an audience: M. Alice LeGrow has created an involving fantasy world that reuses classic elements with plenty of features the teen audience will find appealing.

§ Frequent Beat poster Christopher Moonlight interviews Alex Ross’s manager, Sal Abbinanti, on the subject of the controversy of Ross’s use of photos.

§ Spekaing of blogging vacations, Whitney Matheson was away last week, and got a bunch of guest bloggers, several of whom were familiar faces or had some tpoical thigns to say:
Tasha Chemplavil looks at Dsney’s first black Princess.
Zack Smith looks at weird ’80s kids movies
Justin Aclin looks at ’80s toys
Matt Bogdanow asks “What if your favorite ‘Lost’ characters were superheroes?”
• And Alex Segura looks at Comics websites you should bookmark immediately

4 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for re-posting the video, Heidi. Revisiting Ross’ artwork while editing this interview, helped me to realize just how fantastically he can breath life into our hero’s. There is a huge difference between just copying a photograph (and just having it look posed and stiff) and breathing so much life and attitude into a work of art, like Ross does, that you see them move as you look at them. We also got some great points made on our facebook… http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=450767&id=1456872080&comments=&alert=&mid=1056cffG5945480cGb575dbG11#/pages/Moonlight-Art-Magazine/90602403620 Whoa! That’s a long link.

  2. My reaction to the comment of Ross being a bad role model for young artists is only that he represents how hard they’d have to work to match his skill. To also say that it’s just copying photos, try doing the paintings the way he does them, then talk to me about it. Using photos is of no significance if you don’t know what to do with them. He does.

    His approach is certainly not the be-all and end-all. The sort of things that bug me about his books is a “more realistic” look kinda sucks the fantasy out of it a bit. They always look like there’s a bunch of muscle bound guys in spandex are running around, and it just emphasizes the sillyness of it. They also tend to look dated somehow, as though the settings are in the 60s or so. Sometimes, too, a more expressive line is more interesting than one that is carefully drawn.

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