Marvel is launching a new solo superhero series, which in and of itself wouldn’t be that exciting — except the star will be a Muslim Pakistani-American teenage girl from New Jersey.
Comics
Posted inOpinion
Angst and Comics: Daniel Clowes in Chicago
CHICAGO — Daniel Clowes’s work is the subject of Modern Cartoonist, a show originally designed for the Oakland Museum of California but recently traveled to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and will be showing at the Wexner Art Center in Ohio next year.
Posted inOpinion
Hijacking Family Circus to Reflect a New Reality
Erin Bradley’s Park Slope Family Circus blog appropriates one of a longest running American comic strips, Family Circus, and injects it with wit and social commentary. It’s as if artist Norman Rockwell’s idyllic vision of America was transformed into an episode of Portlandia, the popular hipster-lampooning TV series.
Posted inBooks
This Book Is About as Fun as a Barrel of Monkeys
The phrase “barrel of monkeys” generally means a bit of crazy fun. In some cases, though, people may use it as an example of something that’s less fun, i.e. “this party is way more entertaining than a barrel of monkeys.” This contradictory dual meaning makes Barrel of Monkeys a great title for a graphic novel by French cartoonists Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot — in my eyes, at least, because I still haven’t decided whether the book was a really awesome barrel of monkeys or the lesser variety.
Posted inNews
Did Chicago Public Schools Ban a Classic Graphic Novel?
In a strange and troubling move that looks suspiciously like censorship, Chicago Public Schools have removed Persepolis, a classic graphic novel that tells the story of author Marjane Satrapi’s coming-of-age in Iran, from all seventh-grade classrooms.
Posted inNews
4 Finds from Last Weekend’s Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival
Last Saturday, November 10th’s Brooklyn Comics and Graphic Festival one-day fair was a packed event that featured close to a hundred exhibitors that attracted thousands of fans from across the city. The enthusiasm on the two-floors of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel’s church hall in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was palpable and the quality of publications were high — did I mention graphic novelist Ben Katchor and Chris Ware (among others) were there signing books?
Posted inComics
The Evolution of the Artist
How does the art gene get passed down from generation to generation?
Posted inArt
Without Mercy: The Bitter Comix of Anton Kannemeyer
In 1986, South Africa was still eight years away from the end of apartheid, and though opposition to the racist ruling system had been mounting for decades, the government continued to suppress rebels and dissidents. Yet that same year, the exiled Afrikaner writer and artist Breyten Breytenbach, a vocal critic of apartheid, returned to South Africa to accept a literary award. It was his first visit to his homeland after being granted early release from a nine-year sentence there on charges of terrorism.
Posted inNews
Comics Museum Closes Its Doors (But Will Return)
This week, a lesser-known MoCCA — not LA MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) or New York’s MOCA, aka the Museum of Chinese in America — abruptly closed its doors. MoCCA stands for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, which until Monday was housed in suite 401 at 594 Broadway, in Nolita.