Margaret Atwood is one of Canada’s greatest living writers. The multiple-award winning novelist, essayist and poet is the author of such books as THE HANDMAID’S TALE and CAT’S EYE, and she also dabbles in comics, as Jim Dougan discovered on his LJ.

What I didn’t know was that, in addition to being the author of more than thirty-five books of fiction, short stories, poetry, literary criticism, radio and television scripts, she’s also a closet cartoonist. That’s right: Margaret Atwood DOES COMICS. In tone, they’re vaguely reminiscent of Stuart Immonen’s 50 REASONS TO STOP SKETCHING AT CONVENTIONS. As a drafts(wo)man, she’s no Winsor McCay, or Danielle Corsetto, even, but still – who knew?

Check out Atwood’s comics oeuvre here, and Tony Long? You can put this where the sun don’t shine.

[Image © Dan Haskell 2004]:

An many of you know, legendary animator John K. has a blog, where is slowly offering his teachings in how to make good animation. Recently, he’s been talking about color theory, and the title of one post really caught our eye:

Color Theory: Pee and Poo colors versus Colorful Greys

DULL AND DINGY COLORS TO MAKE YOU THINK SOMETHING SERIOUS IS HAPPENING

K. goes on to show examples of pee and poo colored backgrounds that muddy up storytelling. Meanwhile, his idea of good storytelling with color? Art Lozzi, above, the mastermind behind most of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

In other posts, K. contrasts the over-saturated color of recent (post 1990) Disney flicks with the more intelligent use of color in the olden days, and shows off a variety of sunsets.

More commentary in Cartoon Brew, including the fate of Art Lozzi. (It’s not what you expect.)

ROBOT CHICKEN animates Weird Al song.

The formatting on the DC numbers is screwed up in Explorer.

Next, I’m trying to fix it, but I’ve left the safety of SBM, so I might not be able to in a timely manner. We’re working on a fix however.

Fixed — I think. If it looks bad let me know.

But you should still stay the hell away from Exploiter!

The long, sad, lonely wait is over as TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE unleashes itself on a moribund world tonight at Rocketship in Brooklyn. Long lay the world, in sin and terror pining, until Thrizzle appeared to lift us from the humdrum, to elevate us from the slough of despond, to lay forth a shining path of laffs and yuks to the promised land.

The fun kicks off at 8 pm!

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This weekend is the big Stumptown Comics Fest 2006, in Portland, OR, kicking off TODAY!

The Third Annual Stumptown Comics Fest hits Portland this weekend with its largest assortment of creators, cartoonists, illustrators, publishers and retailers yet. The show runs for two big days, Friday, October 27th and Saturday, October 28th in the south end of the Oregon Convention Center’s Portland Ballroom.

Admission for the Fest is $5 per day, or $10 for a Weekend Pass (includes a poster and button, while suppplies last), and gives you access to 120 tables of exhibitor space and a full schedule of panels and presentations. Hours for the Fest are:

Friday: 4pm – 8pm
Saturday: 10am – 6pm

From the sounds of things, this is a swell indie event, what with Portland having such a lively comics scene. Guests include Paul Chadwick, Colleen Coover, Keith Knight, Kazu Kibuishi and Steve Rolston, but much of the local scene is sure to turn up. Exhibitors include Oni, Dark Horse, Top Shelf, AdHouse, and more. Darn, we wish we could go!

Saturday night there is a big COMIC TONIC party (poster above) sponsored by Top Shelf and Oni.

In celebration of Stumptown Comic Festival 2006, local Portland, Oregon publishers Top Shelf Productions and Oni Press have organized the COMIC TONIC party to take place on October 28th at The Voodoo Lounge.

“Portland is such a unique and amazing city for the comic book industry and Stumptown has become such a wonderful show for Indy comics that we wanted to put together a raucous party to spotlight both,” explained Top Shelf’s Brett Warnock.

The party will take place at The Voodoo Lounge (53 NW 1st Ave, Portland, OR 97209
(503) 241-3840) beginning at 9:00 pm on October 28th, the final day of Stumptown 2006.

“This is an open invitation party. If you’re a creator, retailer, editor, publisher, press or one of the much appreciated fans, we’d love to see you come hang out, have a drink and celebrate everything that is great about our wonderful medium,” said Oni Press publisher, Joe Nozemack.

A limited-edition poster promoting the event has been created by Seattle artist Corey “The Reyyy” Lewis. A portion of the poster’s run will be available for sale at the Top Shelf and Oni Press booths during the Festival.

Send us reports!

Darn, it’s a busy busy weekend!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27

Los Angeles, CA, 8-10pm: Jordan Crane at Secret Headquarters, 3817 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28

London, UK, Noon-4: Ben Templesmith signs at Orbital Comics.
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Recently, Tom Spurgeon pointed to the existence of a recent collection of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein comics. We confess to owning no Briefer comics ourselves, but the bits of his work we’ve seen over the years — most recently in ART OUT OF TIME — have always been very enjoyable. The strip started out as a horror book, but later evolved into a more humorous effort, as the creature got involved in various zany adventures.

To get into the Halloween spirit, a Comics Journal board thread discussing the reprint leads us to this complete scary Briefer story online. Enjoy.

Clickee for large version.

Tony Long, copy chief at WIRED, comes right out and says it: comics aren’t good enough to get nominated for the National Book Award:

Gene Luen Yang is a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area who also happens to be a fine illustrator. He produced a graphic novel (or “comic book,” as we used to call them), American Born Chinese, which has been nominated for a National Book Award in the young people’s literature category.

I have not read this particular “novel” but I’m familiar with the genre so I’m going to go out on a limb here. First, I’ll bet for what it is, it’s pretty good. Probably damned good. But it’s a comic book. And comic books should not be nominated for National Book Awards, in any category. That should be reserved for books that are, well, all words.

This is not about denigrating the comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it. This is not to say that illustrated stories don’t constitute an art form or that you can’t get tremendous satisfaction from them. This is simply to say that, as literature, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It’s apples and oranges.

We’ll note that most “copy chiefs”–at least in our experience–are what are commonly known as “sticklers.” And sticklers like “rules.”

Neil Gaiman (where we first saw this link) has a response. Of course, who would take the word of a crummy, comic-writing Brit?

I suppose if he builds a time machine he could do something about Maus’s 1992 Pulitzer, or Sandman’s 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, or Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan winning the 2001 Guardian First Book Award, or even Watchmen’s appearance on Time’s Hundred Best Novels of the 20th Century list. Lacking a Time Machine, it seems a rather silly and antiquated argument, like hearing someone complain that women have the vote or that be-bop music and crooners are turning up in the pop charts.

I like the bit where he says that he hasn’t read the comic in question, but he just knows what things like that are like. It’s always best to be offended by things you haven’t read. That way you keep your mind uncluttered by things that might change it.

Oh, snap!

“Maid cafes” have become a popular fad in the otaku district known as the Akihabara in Tokyo. Here, pretty young women dressed in frilly lolicon costumes wait on male geek customers hand and foot, giving them some idea what it would be like to have a real subservient girlfriend. Just to even the score, “butler cafes” have also sprung up, where women customers get the royal treatment. (There was supposedly a butler cafe set up at the recent Yaoi Con.)

Now, via ComiPress a disturbing story that they report has badly shaken the otaku world: a maid was accosted and assaulted at knife point.

Not only is Akihabara a hot tourist spot, but it also serves as a place for geeks and otakus to “heal their spiritual wounds.”

A few days ago, a shocking event took place in this otaku heaven that sent tremors throughout the otaku world – a maid was threatened, and subsequently molested, by a man. This incident is now being called “Maid Hunting,” named after the controversial “Otaku Hunting” event that took place earlier this fall in Akihabara.

According to reports, around 7:00pm on October 17th in front of the JR Akihabara Station, a 18 year old girl dressed as a maid (who was handing out flyers) was approached by a man. The man asked, “Are you a college student? Where do you work?” The maid was then asked to bring the man to the maid cafe she worked at. When they were climbing the stairs of the maid cafe, the man suddenly took out a small knife, and proceeded to forcefully molest the maid’s lower body.

According to another story, this was the third recent assault on a maid. The “otaku hunting” incident mentioned above refers to reports of thieves targeting supposedly loaded otaku:

In late September, a group of teens arrested for mugging said they selected their target because he was headed for the central Tokyo otaku haven of Akihabara and appeared loaded with money.

“We figured that otaku are pretty weak and always carry around lots of cash,” Shukan Post quotes one of the arrested muggers telling the police.

In fact, this year Akihabara has already witnessed 25 reported cases of “otaku hunting” and cops fear there could be more. The stereotypical image of the otaku is somebody who devotes as much time and money as possible to their obsession of choice, buying magazines, toys and whatever other paraphernalia tickles their fancy. And the geeks are also normally seen as weak, mild-mannered types not likely to put up a fight if accosted.

Quirky Wes Anderson is the favored director named Anderson at Stately Beat Manor — we thought THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU was one of the finest adventure/comedy/documantaries of recent years. Now it seems, he’s taking a crack at the cartoons with an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s FANTASTIC MR. FOX>:

The 20th Century Fox division will turn the Roald Dahl classic title into a film that will mix several forms of animation, primarily stop-motion.

Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach adapted the book; Anderson will direct and produce with Scott Rudin.

Tome tells the story of a fox who uses its wits and cunning to outfox three dimwitted farmers who tire of sharing their chickens with the fox and resort to a shock-and-awe offensive.

Now this should be very very quirky.

Yes, it’s my mother’s birthday. She tells me she’s working on a brand new comic for MoCCA next year. In the meantime, the first chapter of Soho Snake has wrapped up.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

September was a relatively quiet month for DC Comics. The publisher’s big direct market push for September occurred at the WildStorm imprint, where Jim Lee and company begun to relaunch some of their longest-running properties. Unfortunately, Wildcats, the new line’s supposed flagship title, missed its shipping date, leaving us with Mike Carey and Whilce Portacio’s Wetworks. While DC Universe titles Justice League of America and the weekly 52 took half of the Top 10 spots on the September chart, the only new launch in the publisher’s mainstream line was the limited series Mystery in Space. Over at the Vertigo imprint, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor made its debut at DC Comics with a limited series, while Brian K. Vaughan’s Pride of Baghdad claimed the top spot of the graphic novel chart. Another new WildStorm launch in September was Ninja Scroll, the spin-off of a Japanese animated film.
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Due out this year. Just think, now you can mail your electric bill with Elektra! That is dope!

Best headline ever, right? Well, it turns out that it refers to a high school where girls dressed as CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS were banned by the mean old principal:

But in reality, principal Nicholas Restivo is simply an administrator who, on Superhero Day, had a problem with the way the three seniors were dressed. He issued them an ultimatum: Change clothes, cover up or leave school.

At the root of the clash was Captain Underpants, chubby superhero star of popular children’s books in which he battles talking toilets and foes such as Professor Poopypants.

The reality of the skin-tight suit is what upset this particular Superhero Day:

“I didn’t know which superhero it was, not that it mattered,” said Principal Nicholas Restivo.

The girls depicted this superhero _ who has battled, among other things, talking toilets and the infamous Professor Poopypants _ by wearing beige leotards and nude stockings under white briefs and red capes.

“Yes, I know they weren’t naked,” Restivo said. “But the appearance was that they were naked.”

“They’re not see-through or anything,” said one of the girls, Chelsea Horowitz, an honor student and softball player. “All the teachers thought it was cute.”

But Restivo made his decree: There would be no visible underpants in his hallways.

And thus, Horowitz and fellow seniors Ashley Imhof and Eliana Levin went home to change back into their mortal attire.

This story seems to cry out for the r-rated teen comedy film treatment. It could be called PANTSLOOSE, or some such.

DC just sent out a listing of the trades and GNs for early 2007 (Jan and Feb.)

The list is long — we’re happy to see a collection for THE AMERICAN WAY, John Ridley’s very well received mini-series from Wildstorm, and collections of Batman books by Paul Pope and Sam Kieth.

January instore:

BATMAN: SECRETS TP
Writer/Artist: Sam Kieth
Price: $12.99 US/$17.50 CAN
Page count: 128 pages
Collects: BATMAN: SECRETS #1-5

BATMAN: YEAR ONE DELUXE EDITION TP
Writer: Frank Miller
Artist: David Mazzucchelli
Price: $14.99 US/$19.99 CAN
Page count: 144 pages
Collects: BATMAN #404-407

BATMAN: YEAR 100 TP
Writer/Artist: Paul Pope
Price: $19.99 US/$26.99 CAN
Page count: 232 pages
Collects: BATMAN: YEAR ONE HUNDRED #1-4 and a story from BATMAN CHRONICLES #11

CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN TP
Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
Artists: Dan Jurgens, Gordon Purcell and Jimmy Palmiotti
Cover artist: Daniel Acuña
Price: $12.99 US/$17.50 CAN
Page count: 144 pages
Collects: CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN #1-6

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