Dr. James Beck, Professor of Art History at Columbia University and one of our preeminent scholars of the Italian Renaissance, died on Saturday at the age of 77. This is a great loss, both of an extraordinary scholar and a controversial curmudgeon to the field. Always outspoken, he courted controversy throughout his career – most…
Yup, that’s right. Persepolis shares the prize with Carlos Reygada’s Stellet Licht. Congratulations to Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Palme d’Or goes to Cristian Mungiu’s 4 mois, 3 semaines et 2 jours. For more Persepolis-related stuff, keep watching the MySpace site devoted to the film and the Sony Films site.
Today, the Association of Danish Bookbinders will be presenting their selection of 2006 books at the Museum of Arts and Crafts (Kunstindustrimuseet) in Copenhagen. As mentioned earlier, Rackham’s big anthology of Danish comics and cartoon art BLÆK is part of the it. I won’t be there, but I think both T. Thorhauge (co-editor and contributor)…
Just to follow up on my recent post on cartoonist Ted Rall, along with a plethora of other “activists”, including a number of hip hop MCs being put under surveillance by the NYPD in the months leading up to the 2003 Republican National Convention in New York, I wanted to link to this instalment of…
Strange news at this time of celebration: Philippe Goddin, the editor of the massive ouevre catalogue of Hergé’s that is being published these years and author of an upcoming biography, has just stated in an interview that he is convinced that Hergé died not of leukemia as has hitherto been the belief, but of AIDS.…
They were both monitored by the NYPD in the months leading up to the immaculate propaganda bonanza that was the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. Files just released courtesy of the New York Civil Liberties Union, despite attempts to block them by city officials, list hundreds of organizations and individuals put under surveillance…
Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie just got married! You gotta love ’em! Neil Gaiman has posted a bunch of photos from which this one is taken. Also, check…
Cartoon from today’s Guardian, by Steve Bell. Read Bell’s account of how he came to ‘get’ Blair back when he became leader of the Labour party.
From one of his election speeches in February: “Le principe d’autorité est le principe même de la civilisation” (“The principle of authority is the very principle of civilization”) Cartoon from Charlie Hebdo #776 (2/5/7) by Willem, it says “I’ve changed.”
Just a quick note, here from Oslo, where OCX is going swimmingly. Centered around Oslo’s comics library, in the middle of the hip cafe & kebab quarter Grünerløkka, it’s a chill little festival with a number of interesting guests, mostly Norwegian – Jason, Lars Fiske & Steffen Kverneland probably being the most interesting, though a…
All right, I’m headed out to Oslo in the morning. I’ll be attending the inaugural edition of Oslo Comics Expo, which looks like it’s going to be fun. I’ll be on the panel ‘Tegneserieakademiet,’ on our common understanding and contextualization of comics, on Saturday afternoon. Don’t know whether I’ll be able to update the blog,…
So, those ignoble ClearChannel billboards at the bus stops all around town here are now advertising Spider-Man 3. The conceit is that blue/red Spider-Man mirrors black Spider-Man in the glass facade of a Manhattan high rise, and vice-versa. Yes, it’s clever, I know. And well enough put together I guess, but what exactly is supporting…
So, some of you will probably have noticed that a new head has entered the Bunker, dropping us at a very special Copenhagen crossing, and for the non-Danes out there I want to take the opportunity to present him. Cav is one of the new voices in Danish comics and animation; after several years in…
After a rather washed-out trip to Spain, where Emma got her bag stolen to boot (ahem, we’re trying not to think too much about that now), we’re back in sunny England! Somehow, it seems to me that there’s something wrong with that picture. But there it is. Anyway, it was a great trip, all things…
Sorry about the string of no updates lately. We’re in Madrid where it’s raining cats and dogs. Doesn’t matter too much though – the city’s always great, and at this time we’re treated to a big Tintoretto show at the Prado – the first retrospective since 1937. It’s unfortunately slightly underwhelming, especially since in the…