Jack Kirby would have been 92 today. Our Danish readers are encouraged to seek out the upcoming issue of comics magazine STRIP! (hitting the stands in a month or so) for a career-spanning, long overdue celebration of The King of Comics penned by yours truly.
Ã…rhus festuge startede i dag og fortsætter næste uge. Denne gang er der tegneserier på programmet v. Bunkerens egen Thomas Thorhauge, der på tirsdag kl. 16.00 taler om tegneserien lige nu, og i fremtiden. Mød op, tryk tølperen i hånden og åbn øresneglen.
Det foregår som alle festivalens andre litteratur-arrangementer i Rådhusparken. Mere info, inkl. litteraturprogrammet kan checkes gennem Thomas’ hjemmeside, mens hele festugen naturligvis dækkes på egen side.
This Friday, the 28th, one of Copenhagen’s finest small book/art stores CMYKkld hosts a reception for the release of the artist’s anthology Short Stories from Hurricane Publishing, one of Copenhagen’s finest small art publishers. Also, the store has now expanded its selection of original artist’s prints to include poster-sized formats. There’ll be live music and reading. You gotta go.
It goes down between 5-9 PM at CMYKkld, the basement of Jægersborggade 51 in Nørrebro. Full invite here, Facebook invite here. Unrelated image by Hurricane publisher Vibe Bredahl who is one of Denmark’s younger artists to watch.
Encapsulates what’s cool about Stan Lee, on several levels.
Taken at this year’s San Diego Con by Henrik Andreasen. I filched it from his convention report. For another telling photo of a great comics personality, and one time collaborator of Lee’s, check this one.
Out of Time
Read our appreciation of Michael Jackson’s work around the time of Thriller
Den bedste af alle mulige verdener
Om Ivar Gjørups Egoland på den sidste dag
Yale University Press’ decision to publish Jytte Klausen’s upcoming book on the Danish Cartoon Crisis, The Cartoons that Shook the World, without reproductions of the cartoons themselves is distressing news. In its press release, the Press expresses concern that including them would risk triggering new episodes of violence and they cite consultation with a number of experts to back up their decision.
Apparently, however, the opinion of these experts was not as unanimous as the press suggests and although such events as the 2008 bombing of the Danish embassy in Islamabad was carried out with reference to the cartoons, there has not been much reaction traceable to subsequent publications of the cartoons since the initial flareup. The Press’ decision appears first and foremost one of apprehension rather than the rational, responsible one they want to pass it along as. As the American Association of University Professors express it: “We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands.”
(OBS! Thorhauge her!) På websitet serieland.dk har Kristian Bang Larsen skrevet en kronik om vigtigheden af gode forfattere i tegneserieproduktion. KBL angriber ikke mindst den danske tegneseriebranche, som i hans optik i særdeleshed lider under manglen på gode forfattere. KBLs kronik er et velkomment indlæg i debatten, og har nogle gode pointer : ikke desto mindre tillader undertegnede sig hermed at gå i rette med kronikken, særligt med KBLs tegneseriesyn.
Just a quick note of hype. The latest issue of The Comics Journal, #299, includes my report from January’s festival in Angoulême. For various reasons, it took till now for it to see print, but since it isn’t particularly topical, I don’t think it’s a problem for its readability.
Get the new Journal for my thoughts on the art of Dupuy and Berberian, my assessment of L’Association’s relaunch of their anthology Lapin in its classic format, but almost exclusively with young up-and-comers (with comments by editor/publisher JC Menu), my reviews of some of the prize winners: Winshluss’ Pinocchio, Bastien Vivès’ Le Gout du chlôre, Blanchin and Perissin’s Martha Jane Cannary, Étienne Davodeau’s Lulu — Femme nue and Émile Bravo’s Spirou revival Journal d’un ingénue, and an attempt to gauge what the popularity of these comics tells us about Francophone comics. Last, but certainly not least, read the thoughs of Jessica Abel, Alex Holden, Frederik Peeters and Craig Thompson on the year’s Grand Prix winner Blutch. The latter even provides an example of how his work directly inspired sequences in Blankets.
But most of all, get the mafazine for Bob Levin’s fantastic article about Michel Choquette’s incredible, if inevitably unrealized 70s comics project Someday Funnies — a comics anthology that would have included work by people such as Harvey Kurtzman, Federico Fellini, Will Eisner, William Borroughs, Kim Deitch, Tom Wolfe, Art Spiegelman, Ronald Blechman, CC Beck, Harlan Ellison, Jean Giraud, Ralph Steadman, Goscinny & Uderzo, Arnold Roth, Topor, Frank Zappa, Jack Kirby, and many more…
Johan Krarup har interviewet Free Comics-redaktør og Forlæns/Brun Blomst-forlægger Torben Hansen i anledning af lukningen af førnævnte. Læs det, læs det!
Husk også at læse Rackhams interview med Hansen fra 2006.