Yesterday, manga expert Matt Thorn had a long post on his blog reprinting a series of correspondence he’d had with Christopher Handley’s lawyer and mother. Thorn was asked to be an expert witness, but it never got beyond the talking stage. Handley’s mother posted some comments that make this entire case even more disturbing, accusing her son’s lawyers of not properly explaining what he was pleading guilty to, and in general painting her son as a harmless, hapless victim of a series of events. (OF course, she IS his mom…) She also mentioned that Handley is a diabetic who “isn’t made for prison life”…and one assumes the kind of prison life someone convicted of ordering child porn gets is a little worse than other kinds of prison life.

The correspondence has been removed today, because of a gag order on the case, Thorn reports. There were plenty of excerpts around the web, however, including ICv2.

BTW, file this under speculation, but many people are wondering why Handley’s mail was opened by the Post Office, and why it was flagged. We’re not entirely clear on this, but if the package came from Japan, it would have to go through Customs. and it’s normal for packages to be randomly (or not so randomly) flagged and inspected by Customs, so this could be why it was opened.

More info here.

In writing a story such as the one we just linked to, one always awaits, cringing, the comments and emails on who you left off. One comment left in the section reminds us that Last Gasp, one of the founding fathers, and continued crusaders for GNs, will be at the show. Owner Ron Turner writes:

Last Gasp will be there as well, in two booths. We will show our usually lines of distributed graphic novels and pop surrealist artists. This is our 39th year and we have been attending since 1975 continuously. So, come and see us at booth(s)4651, where we will be able to sell you the titles that are not on the floor as well as our own lovely bunch of coconuts. Maybe someday PW will include us in the categories we helped invent.

Apologies all around.

§ For everyone asking us what is happening in GN-related events at this week’s BookExpo America, Calvin Reid and myself put together a big roundup of who, what, and (sometimes) why not for this week’s PW Comics Week. The show runs from tomorrow, May 28 through Sunday; Thursday is all panels, and the exhibition floor opens Friday. We’ll be on the floor from Friday on.

§ In what is sure to be a hot topic on the show floor, Jim Milliot reports that Borders sales have fallen 12 percent in Q1 2009..

Sales at the superstores, which now includes Borders.com, fell 10.7%, to $536.7 million with comp sales off 13.5%. Sales at the Waldenbooks specialty group fell 19.9%, to $76.9 million, due to a combination of 11 store closures and a 5.5% drop in same store sales. A series of one-time expenses ate into the company’s bottomline resulting in a loss from continuing operations of $86 million compared to a loss of $30.1 million in last year’s first quarter. On an operating basis, the loss was $15.9 million down from $30.5 million in the comparable period in 2008.

The story also mentions continued reductions in inventory (part of what hit publishers, particularly manga publishers, last year) and the need to become “better booksellers.” Space freed up by removing CDs and DVDs wil be be used, partially, to expand the kids’ books section.

We misplaced the link to Tom Spurgeon’s always indispensable tips for enjoying San Diego Comic-Con. Every tip has much wisdom, but we thought we’d spotlight this one:

Tip #15. Get Your Pre-Convention Stuff Done One Full Week In Advance
If you’re preparing anything at all for the show — resumes, business cards, art to sell, opening lines, books to sell, art to show, scripts to pass around, your camera, a freelance assignment — get everything done by July 15. This gives you a day or two leeway if something is screwed up, but it also means you won’t be a basket case when you arrive on the convention floor because you stayed up for 37 hours stapling your mini-comic biography of Phil Seuling. Forget entirely getting something done while you’re there. It’s not convenient and you’ll find 10,000 excuses to skip it.

So true. Over the years we remember talking to artists who would go back to their rooms to ink, or writers who were doing some script punch-up in their spare time. Or, ourselves, running back and forth to the Kinko’s in the lobby to make some last minute (and expensive) copies of something we should have done the week before. Such foolishness is no longer allowed.

Also, hasn’t everyone learned that having the printer air-ship the copies to the con at the last minute, just isn’t a good idea? How many times have we seen people standing wryly before an empty table explaining that “The issues didn’t get here from the printer.” EVERY CON!!!! That’s money you left on the table, people, money lost for the shipping, and money lost for missed sales. Ahead of time means “ahead of time”, not “at the con.”

§ Best-selling author Janet Evanovich will write a graphic novel for Dark Horse, the NY Times reports. Along with daughter, Alex, will pen a GN based on her novels Metro Girl and Motor Mouth which feature a racecar driver named Sam Hooker and a NASCAR mechanic named Alexandra Barnaby. The move allows Evanovich to combine two of her loves:

“We’re comic book fans; we’re huge Nascar fans,” Ms. Evanovich said in a telephone interview. “It allows me to feed my Nascar addiction and comic book addiction all at the same time.”

Best known for her Stephanie Plum mystery books, perhaps this author will be the one to bridge the NASCAR/comics gap?

§ Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing spotlights a graphic novel we’ve never even heard of. Aimed at readers 9-12, NO GIRLS ALLOWED by Susan Hughes and Willow Dawson tells true-life stories of women who dressed as men to follow their dreams.

§ Cartoonist Joey Weiser (The Way Home) shows how he creates a page.

§ GraphicNYC talks to Becky Cloonan.

Via PR: here’s the lineup for programming and more info on this year’s MoCCA — programming will take place at the new venue, the Armory. We’ll certainly be around for Tomine/Seth and Panter/Santoro on Sunday!

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – MoCCA is pleased to announce the panel and lecture line-up for our 2009 MoCCA Festival, taking place the weekend of June 6-7. This year’s MoCCA Festival program features a rich mix of animators, cartoonists, graphic artists, and academics. Our special guests include Tom Hart, Al Jaffee, Tom Kaczynski, Heidi MacDonald, Gary Panter, Bill Plympton, Arnold Roth, Dash Shaw, Seth, Raina Telgemeier, Adrian Tomine, and Jennifer Tong. Saturday’s program opens with author Charles Hatfield discussing his forthcoming critical study of Jack Kirby with Isaac Cates, and closes with a talk by Paul Karasik on the twisted genius of Fletcher Hanks. At 1:00 pm on Saturday industry legend Jerry Robinson will be presented with the Klein Award. Sunday’s program starts with a conversation between Kent Worcester and Tom Kaczynski, and wraps up with a special hour of Satanic-inspired animation. The MoCCA Festival, now in its eighth year, is an annual fundraiser for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – MoCCA.

Saturday, June 6

11 am – 11:50 am
Charles Hatfield and Isaac Cates on Jack Kirby

Noon – 12:50 pm
Comics Bakery Roundtable

With John Green, Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, Marion Vitus

1:00 pm – 1:45 pm
Klein Award Ceremony

2009 Recipient: Jerry Robinson, presented by Danny Fingeroth, with a survey of Robinson’s career.

2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
Making Good Comics in a New Era

With Alvin Buenaventura, Mats Jonsson, Tom Neely, Brett Warnock, Julia Wertz, Dylan Williams; chaired by Heidi MacDonald

3:00 pm – 3:50 pm
AH, HUMBUG! Arnold Roth and Al Jaffee in conversation with Gary Groth

4:00 pm – 4:50 pm
Scandinavian Comics 101

Chaired by Steffen P. Maarup, with cartoonists from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden

5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Paul Karasik on the Twisted Genius of Fletcher Hanks
(more…)

Acclaimed French cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert, had a bit of a press triumph this weekend as the subject matter of his two award-winning books from First Second — THE PHOTOGRAPHER, the story of a dangerous medical mercy mission in 1983 Afghanistan, and ALAN’S WAR, the remembrances of an American GI in WW II — resonated with the Memorial Day holiday.

He was on NPR:

Guibert says that Cope wasn’t a hero — he arrived in Europe too late to see battle — but his stories are still powerful. He first set foot on European soil in the bombed out city of Le Havre, northern France. One day, while trudging along amidst the ruined city with their heavy packs, Cope suddenly remembered that it was his birthday.

“He’s in the middle of this world in ruins and he’s 20 years old, and he forgot his own birthday,” says Guibert. “It was very moving to me to listen to his story because it made me realize something that we all know, which is that war is always made by kids.”

THE PHOTOGRAPHER was reviewed in the NY Times:

The book has the feel of a film, attesting to the skill of Guibert and Frédéric Lemercier, the graphic designer. But there is nothing romantic about Afghanistan or the Afghans, who can be at once courageous and generous as well as heartless and menacing. Lefèvre, on the way back, is abandoned by his feckless guides; his horse collapses and eventually dies; and the photographer nearly succumbs in the snowy mountain passes. “I take out one of my cameras. I choose a 20-millimeter lens, a very wide angle, and shoot from the ground,” he says — “to let people know where I died.” The next page shows his exhausted pack horse amid snowy boulders, followed by a bleak spread of the gloomy mountain pass. Lefèvre is saved by a band of brigands, who shake him down for much of his money but get him out. The physical toll of his trip left him suffering from chronic boils. He lost 14 teeth. But before he died he returned to Afghanistan seven more times in an attempt to tell the stories of those he first met in 1986, whom he could not abandon or forget.

And on Friday, he appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show:

We were so impressed by the above segment that we made a little screen cap:

Let’s take a moment to enjoy this image: a well known TV pundit (who reads graphic novels) is interviewing a world class cartoonist, with respect, about world events — not some superhero dying or getting married or getting zapped by Dr. Light — and she has the book sitting right in front of her on her TV news desk. (Dr. Juliette Fournot, who led the mission, is the other guest.)

And the result for THE PHOTOGRAPHER? We all know Amazon is a bit wonky as a sales indicator, but there has clearly been a surge:

Congrats to the First Second team for putting together this assault on Media Beach. And congrats to Guibert for producing work of such power and clarity that it is deserving of such attention.

Not to rain on anyone’s award parade, but the weekend of the Reuben Awards was also the impetus for a relentlessly gloomy look at the future of comic strips in newspapers in the LA Times:

“There’s less you can do in the size of the panel that current newspapers provide,” said Stephan Pastis, creator of “Pearls Before Swine.”

“In the old days, comics were often full pages. Now, they’re squeezed down into tiny little boxes that don’t give much more room than what it takes to do a talking head. It’s sad to see something that was so important to cartooning becoming marginalized.”

The un-funny reality has made the print comics scene a challenge for newcomers, according to the Post’s Michael Cavna, TV/theater editor and the man behind its Comic Riffs blog.

“I think it’s brutally hard to break into print comics right now,” Cavna said. “It’s like ‘Star Wars,’ when you’re trying to shoot to get the Death Star . . . that tiny little room of error — that’s where cartoonists are left in the print world. The window is yet narrower to succeed.”

This weekend, the National Cartoonists Society held their annual get-together and gave some people awards. Mike Lynch has all the winners, and we’re going to cut and paste:

2008 REUBEN AWARD
Dave Coverly
This is the one known as THE Reuben to recognize the year’s top cartoonist. Coverly is the creator of Speed Bump, and a multiple nominee and winner (for Best Greeting Cards) in previous years.

2008 NCS Division Award Winners:

TELEVISION ANIMATION
Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez – Creators – “El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera”

FEATURE ANIMATION
Nicolas Marlet – Character Designer – “Kung Fu Panda”

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION
Mark Marturello

GAG CARTOONS
Mort Gerberg

GREETING CARDS
Jem Sullivan

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS
Mark Tatulli - “Lio”

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS
Mark Parisi “Off the Mark”

MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION
Sam Viviano

BOOK ILLUSTRATION
Mike Lester COOL DADDY RAT

EDITORIAL CARTOONS
Michael Ramirez

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION
Craig McKay

COMIC BOOKS
Cyril Pedrosa THREE SHADOWS

There were 5 awards of recognition:

Silver T-Square
Jeff Bacon

Silver T-Square
James Kemsley

Gold Key Award
Bil Keane

Gold Key Award
Mell Lazarus

Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship Award Winner
Chris Houghton

§ Josh Neufeld is saving us all. He brings up a very good point — Lambiek is definitely getting out of date.

§ Evan Dorkin finds a remarkable resemblance between two cultural icons.

§The Comics Reporter talks to science graphic novel guru Jim Ottaviani on the occasion of the release of T-MINUS: THE RACE TO THE MOON:

I don’t know that it has special significance, other than this is a book I was ready to do myself and publish via GT Labs. When the opportunity came along to do it with Simon & Schuster, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see how it would work in that context. And you’re right about it being a packaging situation — I can’t recall the exact sequence of events, but it was something like this: My agent asked me for a story to pitch, I gave him a proposal for what became T-Minus, he liked it and asked who I’d like to work with on it, I said Big Time Attic, and he was able to sell it rather easily by saying something like “Here’s Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards. Give these three guys a contract and they can deliver a complete book, cover-to-cover, that you can send straight to the printer.” It wasn’t as easy as that — it never is, either in the contract stage or the making-the-book stage — but that’s pretty close.

§ Robot 6 talks to Dustin Harbin about Heroes Con and difficult times:

But, and please imagine me knocking on wood like crazy, so far the economy has been pretty kind to us this year, and advance tickets sales are, if anything, UP over last year at this time. I think our sales numbers are marginally lower, but our store manager Shawn Reynolds had already tightened her orders around last fall, so we’re running leaner and more profitably than we might have been otherwise, and Shelton is selling comics at pretty much any convention within a day’s drive of Charlotte, so having revenue from that angle is great too.

§ In an interview with CBR, Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros reveals that a new book by Alan Moore may just be a big seller:

Further comparing this first Top Shelf “League” release with earlier editions, Staros said, “I actually think initial orders for ‘League,’ for first day of sale, were actually better than DC Comics’ numbers because of all of the ‘Watchmen’ [film] hoopla that’s been going on lately, pushing interest in Alan Moore stuff even greater. The first print run of ‘League’ — which was rather large, 100,000 copies — is actually almost sold out.”

Staros noted that unlike the first two DC volumes, which were released in single-issue format before being collected as trade paperbacks, hardcovers and an Absolute edition, the “Century 1910’s” larger perfect-bound format and ISBN coding allowed it to gain sales from the bookstore and library markets, as well.

§ The LA Times wonders if Tintin might be the next Harry Potter for Hollywood, while discussing a few other candidates, like THE LAST AIRBENDER.

Despite the pedigree of the filmmakers, “Tintin” presents a difficult challenge for both studios: The comic is widely popular abroad but is largely unknown in the U.S.

So during the meeting in Culver City, the studio executives were given a backgrounder by two representatives of the Hergé estate, who touched upon everything Tintin, including the comic strip’s history and its cultural significance. At the same time, the executives debated how to prime the U.S. market for “Tintin” and discussed possible release dates.

Sony and Paramount aren’t the only Hollywood movie studios that are studying childhood classics and plotting strategy. Others are working on “Yogi Bear,” “The Smurfs,” “The Lone Ranger” (with Johnny Depp as Tonto) and a live-action adaptation by director M. Night Shyamalan of Nickelodeon’s animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

This weekend’s big event in the publishing world, Book Expo America is not open to the general public, but it should be a success for the publishers and retailers in attendance. If you can’t go to BEA, there’s still a good handful of comic events to hit up, at least if you live in close to an American coastline. Read on!

Tuesday, May 26

New York, NY, 8 PM – Ben Kissel at Comic Book Club

This week’s installment of New York’s live comic book talk show at The People’s Improv Theatre features comedian Ben Kissel. Tickets are $5.

Thursday, May 28

New York, NY, 8 PM – “Carousel” slide show at Dixon Place

Cartoonist R. Sikoryak presents “Carousel,” a cartoon slide show, which he has hosted for over a decade, featuring Todd Alcott, Michael Kupperman, Megan Montague Cash, Neil Numberman, Sabrina Jones, Danny Hellman and more. Admission is $15.

Saturday, May 30

San Francisco, CA, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. – George Webber at Cartoon Art Museum

San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum hosts a talk by George Webber (TOXIC FUNNIES, CANDY KISSES) as part of its owngoing Cartoonist-in-Residence program. Free and open to the public.

Saturday, May 30

Bellingham, MA, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Scott Wegener Signing

Eisner-nominated artist Steve Wegener (ATOMIC ROBO, KILLER OF DEMONS) will sketch and sign at Massachusetts retailer Friendly Neighborhood Comics.

Saturday, Man 30

Torrance, CA, 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM – SECRET IDENTITIES signing

Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keiko Agena, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma, some of the crew behind SECRET IDENTITIES, an anthology of super hero comics by Asian American creators, will present and sign copies of the new book at the Torrance Public Library.

Posted by Aaron Humphrey.

As anyone reading our tweets knows, we spent the weekend going through our bookshelves and comics boxes weeding, sorting and stacking. No, we’re not quite ready for a Shelf Porn, alas…unless it’s an episode of How Clean Is Your Stately Manor. As usual when we do this (every few years) it turns out to be an archaeological dig through the many layers of comics publishing history. And we couldn’t help but take note of a few things.

First there was the ’80s bookshelf. About 50 percent of this was European comics albums from Catalan, NBM, and Fantagraphics. Lots of Mattotti (FIRES! Yes!), Bernet, Manara, Lt. Blueberry, and so on. We didn’t even know we OWNED a copy of XIII. And, it seems, there have been so many efforts by Kim Thompson, bless him, to get Euro comics albums accepted in the US. Aside from showing whose comp list we were on back in the day, it is of some interest that at that period, there simply weren’t enough US graphic novels/albums what have you, to publish. (There was a significant pile of Richard Corben in there, and most of the other squarebounds of the era has some kind of underground lineage.) However, to this day, the kind of grown-up adventure/fantasy/SF produced in Europe has never really caught fire in the US. Thompson is trying again with Tardi, and one hopes the literary comics crowd will support his fine, genre-defying work. Humanoides tried and tried, and is back yet again; maybe Hollywood turning to stuff like DYLAN DOG, XIII, and THE KILLER will turn the tide.

Mixed in was the pre DARK KNIGHT/MAUS/WATCHMEN US attempts at graphic novels. Like the very first Marvel OGN — THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVELl, which was followed by efforts like THE NEW MUTANTS, STAR SLAMMERS, and so on. Well, you had to start somewhere, right? There was also a disturbing pocket that contained no less than three different formats of collections of early TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. Oh, and mustn’t forget SWORDS OF CEREBUS. First was also making some efforts with Eric Shanower’s Oz books (recently reprinted by IDW) and Howard Chaykin’s obscure but really good TIME [SQUARED]. Oh, and the “very first graphic novel,” A CONTRACT WITH GOD. (I have the Kitchen Sink edition.)

(more…)

Continuing our brief survey of this year’s Russ Manning Award nominees, Eleanor Davis is one of America’s most acclaimed young cartoonists. With her husband and collaborator Drew Weing, she runs their self-publishing company, Little House. A frequent contributor to MOME, she drew the cover for the 2008 Best American Comics. She created the children’s graphic novel STINKY for Toon Books, and the first volume of her new GN series, THE SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE, is due soon from Bloomsbury. Of Davis’s art, Toon Books editor Francoise Mouly told PRINT Magazine, “It’s very imaginative and funny and fanciful, but it’s also very thoroughly worked out. She’s not afraid to be clear.”

More at her website, Doing Fine.

We thought it would be nice to spotlight the art of this year’s Russ Manning Award nominees. With so many people getting into all levels of comics these days, it’s hard to keep up with all the emerging talents. First up: Gregory Baldwin.

According to his website, Gregory Baldwin bounced around at many jobs while pursuing his first love, art. Finally he landed a gig as Lead Character Artist at Insomniac Games, a video game company whose games include Ratchet and Clank and Resistance.

Baldwin entered the graphic novel world with PATH, published by Com-X, described as the tale of a rabbit and an elephant attempting to survive in a hostile landscape.

Writer Thomas Hall dropped us a note to promote the debut of ROBOT 13 by himself and artist Daniel Bradford at MoCCA, describing it thusly:

On the surface, the Robot 13 is about a skull headed robot who fights giant monsters from Greek Mythology. From a storytelling standpoint, however, it’s somewhat a reworking of Frankenstein meeting Homer’s Odyssey- it’s the story of a thing created by Science who goes on a Hero’s journey of sorts to find out who he really is…

We took a peek at the first issue, and it’s a very stylish steampunk fantasy; very much in a Mignolan vein, to be sure, but continuing our fascination with giant octopii, we’re posting the preview pages here.

More information here and here.

All pages above ©2009 Thomas Hall and Daniel Bradford

We’re told that Emmanuel Guibert and THE PHOTOGRAPHER will be featured on tonight’s Rachel Maddow Show on MSBNC, which runs at 9 pm EDT.

Maddow is known to be a graphic novel reader. Guibert is an award winning cartoonist whose work defines the potential of the medium. So it should be a good segment!

A lot of talk everywhere about Christopher Handley’s guilty plea for owning obscene material. As always, go to Brigid for the complete rundown, but a few call-outs.

§ Lawyer Jeff Trexler points out some very important facts, including the fact that because the case did not go to trial, it did not set a precedent. But he’s also frank about the realities:

Local counsel versus the CBLDF. The decision of local counsel to work for a plea bargain was not irrational. In fact, it reflects a sober assessment of the law and the underlying facts. The chance of success on the constitutional claim was slim, perhaps non-existent. Moreover, the manga images in question did not appear to be the sort of thing that an Iowa jury would find to have socially redeeming value. No matter how many manga experts or First Amendment scholars you bring into court, your average midwestern juror is not going to declare “graphic bestiality, including sexual intercourse, between human beings and animals such as pigs, monkeys, and others” to be a reflection of community standards.

Over at Japanator, someone claiming to be a friend of the Handley family is posting,

The list went on and on. The thing of it is, the four comics that started this whole mess, he didn’t even see what pictures were inside of it. At one point, they even tried to claim that he was a child molester (never at ANY time has Chris been inappropriate with a child. NEVER) They stated that they could prove that he had a thing for kids. They never found ANYTHING other than comics and drawings of anime. PERIOD. They claimed that since the females in the drawings had no pubic hair, then they must be minor children. Which is ridiculous. They tried to claim that he was a threat to society. He’s not a threat to anybody. He had told his sister that he was taking the plea for obscene materials, because that he was guilty of. But he was NOT guilty of obscene materials containing children. The “containing children” part was not told to him by his lawyer. I think Chris got screwed three ways to Sunday on this.

But you should take all that with a grain of salt.

After talking to a few people in the know about this case, it is important to stress in all of this is that Handley does not have a history of being any kind of sexual predator; he does not collect erotica, pornography or anything like it. He is a manga collector. As the poster above, whoever it is, points out, he is not a threat to anyone anywhere. He could be any one of us. Hopefully this plea bargain will get him less than 15 years in jail, because that would be a travesty of justice of sickening proportions.

The takeaway? It’s always a good time to support the CBLDF.

Well, only yesterday we reported Mike Patton might be working with Alan Moore, but Robot 6 dashes our hopes. However, it will still be very cool:

The other details on the project were correct — it will include a photographic novel, art prints, a two-hour audiobook and a soundtrack that will include contributions by Andrew Broder of Fog. Patton, meanwhile, is doing some work with Lex Records, specifically a collaboration with TV On the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe.

ALSO, the Hayden-Christensen-is-Mandrake-the-Magician story has also been quashed:

Yesterday afternoon, word hit the wire that “Star Wars” prequel star Hayden Christensen had signed on for a live-action film based on the “Mandrake the Magician” comic strip created by Lee Falk. After speaking with a representative of Christensen, however, MTV News has been told that he is not attached to the “Mandrake” movie.

We know you are all devastated now, and we’ll just leave you to quietly whimper yourself to an uneasy sleep.