Comics industry luminary Kim Thompson will be dearly missed. Though we aren’t related, I referred to him affectionately as “Uncle Thompson.” He nurtured the comics scene into the thriving community it is today, translated and published crucial European artists, and encouraged young talent. He was one of the very first professionals to discover and acknowledge my work. Here’s a postcard he sent me on March 5, 1997.
Brazilian buddies Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, and Murilo Martins are visiting Portland for ICAF (International Comics Art Forum).
If this post isn’t too late, check out the twins’ SPOTLIGHT TALK at 70 NW Couch Street (Portland) TONIGHT at 7:30.
What do cartoonists do when we drink coffee and nerd out? We discuss craft & reminisce on the masters of the medium.
This morning, we picked four cartooning heroes who passed away recently, and copied panels as a tribute. Below left,
Fabio pencilled a CARMINE INFANTINO panel that Murilo inked. To the right, Murilo pencilled some MOEBIUS panels that Fabio inked.
Then I pencilled a TOPPI page that Gabriel inked. Right, Gabriel pencilled a SENDAK page that I inked.
Here’s my inks on Gabriel’s pencils of a Maurice Sendak image from WE ARE ALL IN THE DUMPS WITH JACK AND GUY.
It’s been a year, and I still think of Maurice daily.
Springtime instigates spring cleaning of the art studio. Here’s a couple of goodies unearthed in the process. Above is a batch of unused illustrations created for a stage presentation at the 2005 ICON Illustration Conference. The general talking point of each illo is: a) preconceptions of comics, b) the obliviousness and/or coping mechanisms of arteests, c) SCOTT McCLOUD as a cult leader of sorts for my generation of cartoonists, d) the reality that most cartoonists pay the bills via illustration gigs, e) the debate over the label “graphic novel”.
Below is another except from the 70 foot scroll I created in fourth grade (1985 or 1986) when I was approximately the same age as Violet in the upcoming SPACE DUMPLINS. Wish I could scan this entire epic for you… in the meantime, there’s a little more on it here.
Happy New Year, Everyone! My apologies for neglecting to post in January. Mostly I was bummed out to not be back on the drawing wagon as predicted. All of December and January were spent in recovery, including occupational therapy. But I’m reminded that there were similar months of recuperation after BLANKETS tour in 2004 (see CARNET DE VOYAGE).
Thanks for your patience with the confusion and delay around the art auction to raise funds for flood relief in the Philippines. The fund raiser is finally active on eBay and bids close in a week. Here’s the link:
Thanks for the reminder, Jordi. It’s been five weeks since my return, and I’ve finally started drawing the NEXT BOOK. Twelve pages are finished, but I’m still reclaiming the discipline & drawing muscles required to make final pages. It’s still a bit soon to reveal the details of the project, but I will say my focus is on the all-ages book. While brainstorming/writing (earlier in the year), I gave equal attention to three ideas, but the time-consuming demands of drawing have nudged the other two books to the backburner. Here’s some preliminary sketches of the new book’s hero – VIOLET.
In other news, here’s a link to the BLANKETS MARRIAGE PROPOSAL of Becca & Mike mentioned at the end of last month’s post.
A sweet moment and a great honor as an author to find one’s book connecting so deeply to readers’ lives. Best wishes to Becca & Mike!
During a two week stay, I conducted graphic novel workshops to three entirely different groups, each with their own inspiring dynamics. The first were deaf children (ages 5 – 20) at The Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Salt, Jordan. These kids were a bit baffled by the concept of comics (perhaps even drawing) on the first day of classes, but by the third day, they were churning out comics with wild abandon. The institute is a boarding school, and the theme of missing one’s family was a common one in many of their stories, but the concurrent theme was that of gratitude towards finding an extended family they could actually communicate with.
Through comics, these kids proved quite eloquent with word balloons, sound effects and visual music. My favorite exercise was a pairing up of students – boy/girl, young/old – in which one student signed a story and the other translated it into comics form on a board in front of the class.
The second batch of workshops was with inner city youth – teens and university students – at the Princess Basma Youth Resource Center Computer Clubhouse. They channeled passions for music, graffiti, writing, architecture, and even computers into comics pages, collaborating on an anthology conceived and drawn in only three days — a pretty impressive display of constructive teamwork. If only I’d been so focused at that age! The girls (above left) are refugees from Syria and amazingly prolific cartoonists. They talked of creating a graphic novel to document their experience fleeing their war-torn homeland. The world needs this book to exist!
In the final workshops (below) held at Mlabbas – a hipster t-shirt shop on Rainbow Street in Amman – we gathered professional artists with specific interest in graphic novels. It was refreshing to be around like-minded, similar-aged peers without a language barrier, and also to witness the outset of a burgeoning comics scene. Every single meal we shared was an AMAZING FEAST! The media paints a bleak outlook for the region, but there is a visceral optimism around the arts and self-expression and the medium of comics.
Finally, despite the banning, we were able to organize a bookstore signing where I met HABIBI fans from Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. These two fans (below right) had only recently left their homes in Iraq. Readers found the book’s ban quite arbitrary, and felt it corresponded with a time of public frustration towards increasing government censorship in Jordan. Many Muslim readers thanked me specifically for the reverent depiction of their faith in HABIBI.
