This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://comicsresearch.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://comicsresearch.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

Link

New Review: THE ART OF DITKO

My latest review is up at the Ulysses "Seen" website. Feast your eyes on some gorgeous art by one of my favorite cartoonists, Steve Ditko!

"New York, the Super-City" Tuesday March 9th at 6:30 pm!

Here's a press release which explains what I'll be doing a week from today...

New York Center for Independent Publishing
Presents
"New York, the Super-City"
Tuesday March 9th at 6:30 pm!

New York served as the model for Gotham City, inspired Will Eisner as he created the noirish adventures of The Spirit, and became a recurring character during the 1960s resurgence of Marvel in comics such as Spider-Man and Iron Man. ForeWord Magazine contributing editor Peter Gutiérrez will moderate a high-energy roundtable on the relationship between superheroes and their favorite hometown... and on how comics culture has promoted potent and memorable images of New York to readers worldwide.

When: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 6:30-8:30 pm
Where: 20 W. 44th Street, New York, NY 10036

Tickets $15 for general admission, $10 for CIP Members, and $5 for students - and they're tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Please email contact@nycip.org or call 212-764-7021 to reserve!

Speaker Bios:

Danny Fingeroth was the longtime group editor of Marvel's Spider-Man line and the writer of many comics featuring Spider-Man, Iron Man, The X-Men and other iconic characters. He is the author of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society; Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero, and the Rough Guide to Graphic Novels.

Peter Gutiérrez is an Eisner-nominated comics creator and a born-and-bred New Yorker who hopes that people don't learn that he now lives in New Jersey. Peter has written about pop culture for Graphic Novel Reporter, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Montclair Times, Screen Education, School Library Journal, Rue Morgue, the ALAN Review, and ForeWord Reviews, where he is the graphic novels columnist.

Gene Kannenberg, Jr. is the author of 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide (Collins Design, 2008) as well as articles about comics for the Comics Journal, Hogan's Alley, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the International Journal of Comic Art, and several academic essay collections, some of which come from his 2002 Ph.D. dissertation on comics. His new publishing house specializing in books on comic art will debut later this year. Currently he writes graphic novel reviews for the "Ulysses 'Seen'" website and is the director of ComicsResearch.org.

Frank Tieri is an award-winning writer and creator who has worked on some of the biggest franchises in comics including Wolverine, X-Men, Hulk, Iron Man and Batman. Current work includes: Wolverine/Wendigo, Wolverine/Mr. X, Web of Spider-Man, Deadpool Team-Up.

Billy Tucci is an award-winning illustrator, writer and filmmaker best known for his modern-day samurai fable Shi. Garnering praise in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, the character has also crossed over with many comic book icons, including Daredevil, Witchblade and Wolverine. Last year Billy won wide acclaim for his story "Flash Vs. Superman-To the Finish Line!" and a hugely successful run on Sgt. Rock-The Lost Battalion. He recently completed illustrating Jonah Hex, and is developing several new stories for DC Comics as well as a new Shi series and several other creator-owned projects.

This event is made possible thanks to the generous support of the New York State Council for the Arts, New York Comic-Con, Midtown Comics, and GraphicNovelReporter.com. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

About the NYCIP
The New York Center for Independent Publishing supports the craft and creativity of independent publishers, and promotes public awareness of how their work contributes to the creative economy, addresses the needs of underserved audiences, and furthers freedom of thought and expression. We support this mission by providing access to education for independent publishers, writers, and the general public, encouraging excellence and cultivating free expression through workshops and lectures. Our signature events include the Independent and Small Press Book Fair, the Round Table Writers' Conference, and The Poor Richard Award ceremony, an annual reception honoring a publisher for commitment to the independent community.

CFP: "The Arts and the Public"; NEASA Conference (4/9; 10/1-3/10)

Note that this CFP mentions graphic novels...

CFP:
The Arts and the Public
New England American Studies Association
Annual Conference
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA
October 1-3, 2010

The New England American Studies Association welcomes proposals for its 2010 conference on "The Arts and the Public," to be held at the Massachusetts Historical Society, October, 1-3, 2010. Proposals for papers, panels, workshops, and other forms of presentation will be accepted at neasacouncil@gmail.com through April 9, 2010. Proposals are limited to 300 words. NEASA welcomes proposals from across the disciplines, from primary/secondary as well as higher ed, from artists as well as scholars, and from outside the academy as well as within. More information is available at www.neasa.org.

The relationship between the arts and the public has always been both contentious and celebrated in American life. From debates over the propriety of early American novels to present-day attacks on public-arts funding, from nineteenth-century responses to abolitionist literature to controversial post-9/11 representations of Muhammad, the link between the artistic and civic has long generated suspicion and argument. At the same time, the arts are frequently understood as an essential component of an education in democratic citizenship and have throughout the twentieth century been supported by the state. Indeed, the establishment and institutionalization of American Studies itselfowes a great deal to such state sponsorship. It is clear that the arts interpellate, just as they also help construct new publics - new collectivities based on race, gender, sexuality, and other orientations - that challenge dominant values of the public. The histories of social and identity movements are also the histories of art and aesthetics.

In inviting proposals for papers, panels, workshops, and presentations on this topic, NEASA conceives of "the arts" and "the public" very broadly. We welcome work on the visual, literary, print, (new) media, performance, photographic, musical, cinematic, plastic, fine, and popular arts, as well as material culture, industrial arts, kitsch, built environments, architecture, and folklore. We hope for papers and panels on public policy, public funding, Public History, Public Humanities, public art, public education, public sphere theory, and counterpublics. Papers may even challenge the very idea of "the arts" and "the public." Participants may address the topic historically, theoretically, politically. We are interested in the work of practitioners as well as scholars, of visual and performance artists as well as those who work with the arts in public institutions.

Additional fields and objects of engagement might include:

• Black Arts Movement
• Blacklists
• The New Deal and WPA
• Native-American arts
• Arts and the border
• Transnational arts
• Documentary
• Histories of public art
• Folk art and folklore
• Publication and circulation
• Privatization of publishing
• Free publishing
• New Media and the public sphere
• Popular music
• Copyright, patent, and intellectual property
• Open Source and open access
• Open universities
• Secondary Education and the Arts
• NEA
• Culture fronts
• Relational aesthetics
• Queer film, zines, poetry, fiction, performance . . .
• Art of the book
• Graphic novels
• Illustration
• Religious iconography
• On-line learning
• American Studies and the public
• The history of American Studies and other disciplines
• The crisis in the humanities
• Cultural tourism
• Art markets and criticism
• Private/public splits
• Questions of cultural identity and the public sphere
• Citizenship and the arts
• The neoliberal notion of culture
• Controversies and censorship
• Education and pedagogy
• Culture wars
• Public funding of the arts
• Sociology of literature and art
• The intersection of the aesthetic and the political
• Museum studies
• Democracy and the arts

neasacouncil@gmail.com
www.neasa.org