New Kids Meets Teen Humor

Straight out of 1991!  I’m always on the look out for romance and teen humor comics, so my My buddy Mark Bilokur lent me this.  Perhaps it’s not a particularly note-worthy piece of comics literature, but it’s a fun example teen humor and licencing.

Not much has changed since 1959!

- Robyn Chapman

Bears and Blitsers

On Friday CCS held the closing reception for Bears and Blisters: An Exhibition of Colleen Frakes and Ken Dahl.

For more photos, visit our flickr site.

This exhibit showcased original art from Frakes’ Woman King and Dahl’s Monsters.  Be sure to give these award-winning books a read!  They are available at the Schulz Library, in the CCS Student Work section.

- Robyn Chapman

First Friday at CCS: Bears and Bears and Bears, Oh My!

Get ready for a bear attack!

Colleen Frakes

Jon Chad

Nick Patten

Join us at The Center For Cartoon Studies for a First Friday reception of Bears and Blisters: An Exhibition of Colleen Frakes and Ken Dahl.

An author talk and comics reading will begin at 7pm. Cartoonists Colleen Frakes, Jon Chad and Nick Patten will share stories starring that beloved and misunderstood mammal, the bear.

Ken Dahl will be in New York, preparing for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival.  If you’re in Williamsburg, be sure to stop by and get your signed copy of Monsters!

This Friday and Saturday will be your last chance to see Bears and Blisters.  Don’t miss it!
For more information, visit cartoonstudies.org

- Robyn Chapman

Badaboom Twist

As I was moving about CCS today I noticed a mini-comic on several desks. It was an autobio/diary comic called Badaboom Twist by David Libens. I was instantly taken with it. Art wise it was somewhere between Mark Marek Jeffrey Brown and R.O. Blechman (but with the soul of John P!).

Turns out that David was in town visiting his friend and current CCS fellow Max de Radigues (fellow Belgian). Had the pleasure of meeting David later in the day and got my own copy.

It was as good of a mini comic as I have read in awhile. His site is here.

— James Sturm

Jen Vaughn Made the Bitch List!

Jen Vaughn, powerhouse cartoonist and staff librarian here at the Schulz Library, has just made the prestigious “Bitch List”.  That is, she came in at number 11 in Bitch issue 45.

Bitch (The Feminist Response to Pop Culture) regularly publishes a list of all things bitchin’, and Jen’s menstruation-themed comics (Menstruation Station and Don’t Hate, Menstruate!) caught their eye.

You can read Jen’s comics at the Schulz Library, or buy copies here.

Congrats, Jen!

- Robyn Chapman

Introducing The Bissette Art Instructionals

Want to learn how to turn this…

into this?

Visit the Bissette Art Instructionals, where you can learn tricks of the trade and watch drawing demos by this CCS faculty extraordinaire.

- Robyn Chapman

A Course in Cartooning, Across the Sea

This report just in from CCS student Kevin Kilgore.  Kevin is spending his senior year in Seoul, South Korea (learn more here).  As part of his low-residency program, Kevin is researching cartooning in his region.  Below he describes the cartooning major at Sangmyung University.

CHEONAN, South Korea – Looking down at what appears to be a corpse wrapped up on a cot, I’m distracted by my tour guide. He has just interrupted two guys, who seem to be goofing around on the Internet. After some blushing and muffled laughs, we are shown a short animated film. The corpse snored. The two guys and the corpse, are students in the Division of Cartoon & Digital Contents at Sangmyung University.

Sangmyung University was founded, in Seoul, in 1937 as a women’s university. In 1985, the Cheonan campus was opened. The 1990s was a time of change for SMU, it opened its doors to male students and began its cartoon and animation program. Located about an hour-and-a-half outside of Seoul, SMU’s Division of Cartoon & Digital Contents has over 300 students studying in three bachelor degree plans: Cartoon, Animation, and Digital Contents. According to the school’s Web site:

 

“A major in Cartoon teaches all the processes involved in cartoon production including: planning, story, continuity, and editing of Images and storyboards. This program aims to be innovative by creating new digital Images for the future. Students are encouraged to work independently and produce a cartoon from beginning to end. A major in Cartoon will produce professionals who will open up new areas in animation for the 21st century. Students will have the opportunity to produce theories, improve research skills and have practical training.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During my tour of the cartoon department’s facilities Ki Hwan Son, Vice Managing Director of the Industry Academic Cooperation Foundation, spoke to me about SMU’s curriculum and post-graduate life. In the mid 90s, when SMU began offering cartooning degrees only one-in-20 applicants were accepted, however that number is down to one-in-seven, Ki said.

After graduation, most students look to the computer game industry for employment as character designers and industrial artists. That is where the money is at, added Ki.

Ki is not only a faculty member, but also a cartoonist, painter and president of the executive committee for the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival. SICAF is one of the largest cartoon events in Korea.

Continuing around the facility, one thing stuck out. Sleeping students. In every classroom we passed there were at least one or two fledgling cartoonists sacked out, head down on a desk. And, it was not uncommon to see cots in the classrooms. The production lab had a cot right in front of the industrial paper cutter for fits narcolepsy during crunch time.

Why all of the sleeping? Boring classes? I think not. The sheer volume of work these kids were turning out was amazing.

Gwak Seung Hoon drew 140 pages for his senior thesis PRIVATE. Kim Min Kyung knocked out an impressive 170 pages for her final project titled The Real World & Fantasy World. Not to be outdone, Jang Hye Won’s all-color The Man Who is Everything and Nothing weighed in at 200 pages.

To showcase their work the students put together a 56-page, color pamphlet with two pages dedicated to each person’s thesis and contact information.

In the department’s main office you can flip through the student’s final projects, which were published with the same quality and attention to detail as comics you would find from big publishers in a comic shop.

Although SMU became a coed school in the mid 90s, female students are still in full force in the DC&DC. Out of the 23 seniors in the cartoon department’s 2009 graduating class, 19 were female.

As an avid student of comics, I was very impressed by the array of talent displayed by both the faculty and student body at SMU’s DC&DC. Although a lot of the work was focused on the mainstream comics market and the computer game industry, the foundation the students receive more than prepare them for any genre of comics they chose to take on.

- Kevin Kilgore

Big and Little

John Stadler recently visited CCS and walked us through one of his most popular books, Big and Little.  This book, and several others, are available in the Schulz Library’s Children’s Books section.

I originally wrote about Big and Little on the CCS Visiting Artist Blog.  I got such a kick out of the book, I wanted to post here as well.

During his visit John Stadler entertained us with anecdotes from his long career in the children’s book field. He also demonstrated a unique process he uses to generate stories. In this approach, he creates two plot lines: Plot A and Plot B. As we turn the page, these plots progress and finally meet at the story’s conclusion. Anticipation is built, and the conclusion is both surprising and rewarding. Stadler’s book Big and Little is the perfect example of this concept in motion. By using the device of a fold-out page, Plot A and Plot B are kept in separate worlds.

Plot A.

Plot B.

Plot A.

Plot B.

Big and Little is a very smart children’s book that uses a simple device to play with the reader’s expectations. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you that this 31-year old was surprised and tickled by Stadler’s twist ending.

- Robyn Chapman

New Books!

In September of 2009, the Center for Cartoon Studies participated in Glory Days, the local railroad festival. The entire town came out to celebrate, be it with bagels, chowder, discount tires, or comics.

The Schulz Library held a book sale and the Center for Cartoon Studies held a mini-convention where students and local cartoonists sold their comics. Professor and cartoonist, Steve Bissette, graced the floors with his presence and new Vermont Monster Guide. Many townspeople of White River Junction wandered in, entranced by our robot statue, Dixie, and the promise of comics. While many thought comics were only for children they soon found that our comics run the gamut from polar bears to caterpillars, herpes to menstruation, glasses to cryptids.

First year student, Lena Chandhok, examines the books for a possible purchase. Funds from the books sale then went towards student recommendations (and wishes) for the Schulz Library. Given the generosity of publishers, writers, cartoonists and local libraries we usually have whatever book the students want, however, we recently recieved the student recommended books bought with our Book Sale funds!

Before I could even finish cataloging our new books, second year student Casey Bohn dug into Fletcher Hanks’ You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation (edited by Paul Karasik). Our other new books include: Arguing Comics (with essays by e.e. cummings and Umberto Eco in defense of comics!), Kramer’s Ergot #6, Sandman #8-10, Scott Pilgrim#2 and #5. They will prove to be useful to our current students and future classes. Check your local library to see if they have copies of these wonderful graphic novels and books!

-Jen Vaughn

Recommended: Nine Recently Read Books

In No Particular Order…

1. Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory

This Xeric award-winning book by Erroyn Franklin documents the dissolution of her marriage and the ensuing emotional vortex that results.  The illustrations on each page are white paper cut-outs and their intricately sliced shapes, all empty inside, look as if they are in danger of being swallowed up by the black page. The technique is brilliantly suited to the subject matter.

 

 

2. Monsters

This is a semi-autobiographic tale of one cartoonist’s struggle with herpes. Jason Lutes’s blurb on the back of the book says it best, “ Ken Dahl’s is one of the great unsung talents in American comics.”

 

 

3. The Vulgarians

I confess with not being too intimate with Robert Osborn’s work. Published in 1960, The Vulgarians is an angry love letter to his country. It’s a tirade to be sure but its a funny, insightful and dead on. The way the images and text work together (a paragraph of hand written text alongside an illustration) reminded me of Maira Kalman’s blog for The New York Times even the though the tone of these two artists couldn’t be more different.

 

 

4. Untitled

This a great little zine by one of my Adventures in Cartooning collaborators Alexis Frederick-Frost. It reminds me a little of Virgina Lee Burton’s The Little House, but with a ship instead of a boat. Alexis is a great brush man and this book, with it’s stormy skies and churning waters, really allows him to showcase his talents. Can be ordered for five bucks from One Percent Press.

 

 

5. The Sultan’s Procession

I can’t tear myself away from this large art/history book. In 1657, a Sweedish envoy visited Istanbul. Besides keeping a detailed diary of everyday life, Claes Rålamb also aquired 121 small water colors depicting the different “types” in characteristic outfits. Even more impressive are the 20 large paintings depicting an imperial procession.

 

 

6 They Called Me Mayer July

Like The Sultan’s Procession, this book also acts as a time machine. The reader is transported to Mayer Kirshenblatt’s childhood in the small Polish town of Apt in the early 1900s. Kirshenblatt didn’t start painting until he was 73 and then the memories started pouring out. This is the type of history book I love— colorful and intimate details of day-to-day life accompanied by heartfelt artwork.

 

 

7. George Sprott

Seth is one of the best cartoonists working today and he just keeps getting better and better. Seth possesses the literary gifts of our finest novelists along with unparreled cartooning chops. As a book designer he brings it all together. I was deeply affected by the life and death of George Sprott. Seth shows us that life (even one full of regrets, vanity, and insensitivity) is still a magic act that is over far too soon.

 

 

8. The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics

This is a beautifully packaged and produced book chock full of delightful comics. My girls (ages 7 and 9) and I all loved it. I wrote a more comprehensive review of the book here.

 

 

9. 3 Story, The Secret History of the Giant Man

From its elegiac coloring to the way interior panels are lined up to produce x-ray effects to its die-cut cover, Matt Kindt has produced a beauty. Ultimately however, it’s the book’s emotional authenticity that takes a b-movie conceit—that a man who grows to be the size of a three story building was used as a US spy during the cold war— and transforms it into something moving.

 

—James Sturm