Has anyone read Cathy Malkasian’s Percy Gloom? New York Magazine ran an excerpt, and I am intrigued:
Also, Chris Oliveros at D+Q posted another page of Lynda Barry’s upcoming “What It Is”:
Beautiful stuff!
Just in case anyone else is interested in my other favorite female cartoonists: Renee French, Julie Doucet, Hope Larson, Alison Bechdel, Roz Chast, Lilli Carré, and Jessica Abel. I probably left a ton out, but those are the ones I can think of.
Who are your favorites?
As my days as a librarian wind down, I might do a few posts here and there about my thoughts on the profession, and what I’ve learned from the job.
LESSON #1: People don’t read signs.
We have a huge sign over our desks that says, “INFORMATION.” I wear a name tag around my neck that says “STAFF.” Our staff computers are clearly separate from the patron computers. So why is it that at least a handful of times during the week I’m asked, “Uh, do you work here?”
Though people often ignore signs, we can still try our best to make signs better. Above you’ll see a noble attempt by our graphics department. At left, the old sign. At right, the new.
This might be filed under “instructions at the point of need.”
A lot of people are pointing to the excellent Ron Rege‘s recent adaptation of Kenneth Patchen’s “The Snow is Deep on the Ground” over at PoetryFoundation.org.
What they’re not pointing to are Kenneth Patchen’s own “picture-poems,” many of which are painted and silk-screened in wild colors. Dig them:
During the (still-in-progress) move, I came across these doodles that Lynda sent me as part of a letter. Everything she does inspires me to create, so I thought I’d share these.
A comics page by Joe Lambert
Joe Lambert is a student at the Center for Cartoon Studies. I’ve been following Joe’s blog for a while, partly because he’s a great cartoonist, partly because he does such a great job of documenting his life as a student at the school. (I’ve found student blogs to be a fabulous resource for determining whether a program would be right for me. Dig also, Dan Saffer’s blog about his time at Carnegie Mellon’s Design school)
Joe recently did a long interview with CCS faculty member Steve Bissette. I was impressed by Joe’s knowledge, but also by his honesty:
“I love so many things about comics, but at the same time I get really tired of reading something that I don’t like and getting this nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me that I should like it because it is done well. I think this is part of the complacency we sometimes fall into when creating things: thinking that it’s okay to be passive about what we’re doing or what we’re reading. I don’t want to get into value judgments, because everything is great all of the time, right? But I get tired of liking things just because they’re not bad. I really want to hate everything that isn’t amazing. I don’t think too many comics are doing everything that comics can be doing. “
I also really dig Joe’s list of cartoonists he’s looking to for inspiration these days:
Lately I’ve been looking closely at guys like David B. and Lewis Trondheim. Both create pages that are visually appealing, often with consideration to the way a page reads – the flow, I guess. But they’re both great at symbolizing ideas and doing so in a way that doesn’t interrupt the reading….I like the way Craig Thompson effortlessly guides my eyes across pages. I like the way Chester Brown’s thin, delicate line makes me uncomfortable; or the way Chris Ware evokes the passage of time and establishes rhythm using any number of panels; the way Lilli Carre packs so much into her characters’ expressions; I’m excited by Jordan Crane’s audacity to leap from moment to moment without holding the reader’s hand too tightly. Kevin Huizenga takes his comics very seriously, but still is still playful too.
Yes, yes, yes. Go say hello to Joe.
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