January 31, 2011 Ultimate WWC

Just a little tease, for now...

January 24, 2011 RIP CCA

Wow. Talk about a slow time in the Cerebus art bizniz. I could have Rip van Winkle'd for a month and woken up to nothing really new to report. So I'll editorialize, instead.

Thanks to Margaret (Cerebus FanGirl) for the mention in the latest Cerebus The Newsletter. Anyone, really, could have transcribed and edited down the CerebusTV broadcast about The Last Signing.

Thanks to the FOX Network (did I say that?) for Fringe, which restarted again in the Friday Death Slot (and had the highest ratings of all Friday shows... of what possible value are broadcast ratings, really?).

Thanks to the FOX network twice (twice!) for Glee, which I finally caught up with over the last 3 weeks. Teacher-stuff - check. Championing the misfit underdogs - check. Musical theater - check. That's a triple-check on my brain. The show has flaws a mile wide, but in this case that's like saying someone is cutting your opium dose with chocolate. I'm completely addicted.

The extended conversation ("conversation") between Dave Sim and Steve Bissette at srbissette.com over all-things-self-published was pretty interesting. I was not too keen on DVS breaking radio silence on things related to Gerhard, though. This is a topic about which the less is said, the better, in my view.

And this delightfully quaint report: the impending death of the Comics Code Authority. You know the history. Marvel abandoned it for content labels a decade ago, and now DC and Archie are following suit. Of course, any child with a web browser and access to the internet now has instant connection to nearly unspeakable content that would make the side of Frederick Wertham's head blow off (note: formerly incorrect spelling of Wertham has been retconned). At least, in the Dayes-of-Yore, you had to actually carry printed content to the clerk, plunk your money down and take public ownership of what you wanted to look at.

A Dave Sim video essay on the history and demise of the CCA would be interesting.

Speaking of which, more or less, did anyone else think that the entire CerebusTV episode last week - constructed around a juvenile reply to a childish comment related to Frankenstein scars and the curious habit of depicting Glamourpuss covergirls with crossed eyes and extended tongues - was the first true Fail of the series? It has to be bad - I was sitting alone, listening to it with headphones, and I was just horribly embarrassed by the whole thing.

January 8, 2011 Sane as it ever was

I've mentioned before my penchant for late 19th and early 20th Century political and editorial cartoonists and their pen and ink work. Frederick Opper is the person whose work I like the most.

I just picked up a couple of pieces by Rollin Kirby,and they are more than worth the price of admission.

Rollin Kirby was a 3-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his cartoons (1922, 1925, and 1929), which were generally published in the New York Post, the New York Mail, and the New York News. In fact, he was the first recipient of a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning.

These two cartoons are simply stunning because of the subject matter. Re-do then with a touch of modernity and you have to change absolutely nothing to have a still-relevant message. These might have been done in response to the Scopes trial, which took place in 1925. I need to do a little detective work on them.

January 7, 2011 It's not easy being green, again!

eBay item no 120666277335
Seller: bonecrusher86
Buyer:snowsuspended
Price: $310.55

Another new name on the auction win list! Not clear from the 500+ purchases made in the last 6 months, at least those that can be seen, what was interesting about the Vark Thing. Sometimes I hear... sometimes I don't.

I was on the $300 fence with this one. It would have made a nice bookend to the Savage Dragon piece, Varky Varky Night, and I have to admit, once again, that I pick up a stronger appreciation of these things after seeing the work that goes into them when I watch the videos. It's certainly just as weird as Varky Varky Night. And I thought the little golf green was funny. But I was not too partial to the way those thick lines came out in the front and the discontinuity of that area with the Aardvarkian snout.

Plus... I am saving up for the potentially imminent reboot of WWC (no pressure, Ger!).

For the final time: the Incroyable Vark Thing!

January 1, 2011 Commission Covering A Wall

Elsewhere (from here) in the great mitten-shaped state of Michigan, one of the Cerebite brethren has commissioned a wall-sized montage of drawings commemorating "Church & State." Here's a first view of not-all of it.