Pop links: Free McCartney download! Dylan X-mas album a go! Lou Fine and Reed Crandall! Batman meets the aliens! Abbey Road at 40! More!
Paul McCartney is offering a free download of his tune "Great Day," featured in the new Judd Apatow movie "Funny People," here. The song was originally released on Paul's Flaming Pie album.
-----
That Bob Dylan Christmas album is coming, Billboard reports.
...at least four songs have already been recorded for the album including, "Must Be Santa," "Here Comes Santa Claus," "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
Dylan, who was born Robert Zimmerman, will join a music business tradition of Jewish artists who release Christmas-themed albums, including Neil Diamond and Phil Spector. Irving Berlin, who wrote the yuletide classic "White Christmas," was also Jewish. Although he was born Jewish and seems to have returned to the faith, Dylan went through a "born again" Christian phase from 1979-1981, releasing several gospel-style albums including "Slow Train Coming" and "Saved."
I've gotta hear this...
-----
Golden Age Comic Book Stories presents a whole bunch of Lou Fine and Reed Crandall-illustrated Doll Man stories from 1940.
-----
Batman sure met a lot of aliens in 1961.
-----
Pappy presents a very Will Eisneresqe spook story illustrated by the great Jerry Grandenetti.
-----
See a trailer for the upcoming "Where the Wild Things Are" adaptation.
-----
Forty years after the album was released, fans are still getting their photos taken Beatles-style crossing Abbey Road, the BBC reports.
-----
That Bob Dylan Christmas album is coming, Billboard reports.
...at least four songs have already been recorded for the album including, "Must Be Santa," "Here Comes Santa Claus," "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
Dylan, who was born Robert Zimmerman, will join a music business tradition of Jewish artists who release Christmas-themed albums, including Neil Diamond and Phil Spector. Irving Berlin, who wrote the yuletide classic "White Christmas," was also Jewish. Although he was born Jewish and seems to have returned to the faith, Dylan went through a "born again" Christian phase from 1979-1981, releasing several gospel-style albums including "Slow Train Coming" and "Saved."
I've gotta hear this...
-----
Golden Age Comic Book Stories presents a whole bunch of Lou Fine and Reed Crandall-illustrated Doll Man stories from 1940.
-----
Batman sure met a lot of aliens in 1961.
-----
Pappy presents a very Will Eisneresqe spook story illustrated by the great Jerry Grandenetti.
-----
See a trailer for the upcoming "Where the Wild Things Are" adaptation.
-----
Forty years after the album was released, fans are still getting their photos taken Beatles-style crossing Abbey Road, the BBC reports.
Batman meets Doc Savage in upcoming DC special!
DC Comics has been hinting that it has plans for Doc Savage-related comics. Now we finally get a few details:
...we’ll be seeing a lot more of Doc Savage in the pages of DC comics in the near future. Now, we can actually give you a tad more, detail-wise.
...we’ll be seeing a lot more of Doc Savage in the pages of DC comics in the near future. Now, we can actually give you a tad more, detail-wise.
This November, writer Brian Azzarello teams with artist Phil Noto for the BATMAN/DOC SAVAGE SPECIAL #1, which sets the stage for an entire new world for the Doc, along with a slew of characters that will pop up later, including the Blackhawks and Rima, the Jungle Girl. It all starts here, and I’m not exaggerating when I say you’re really in for a treat.
Azzarello is no stranger to noir or gritty storytelling, as anyone familiar with Vertigo’s 100 BULLETS and the recent JOKER OGN can attest. Coupled with Noto’s neo-classic art style and you’ve got the perfect launching pad for a collection of books that will pull these beloved characters into the 21st century.
Pop links: Asterix! Robyn Hitchcock! Jack Cole!
Find Asterix!
-----
Hear Robyn Hitchcock live on NPR.
-----
Read a 1940 crime tale illustrated by the great Jack Cole.
-----
Hear Robyn Hitchcock live on NPR.
-----
Read a 1940 crime tale illustrated by the great Jack Cole.
New pics from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
A few new images from upcoming film starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as The White Queen.
New Prince of Persia pics
A few images from Disney's upcoming Prince of Persia flick, inspired by the video game and starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan, Gemma Arterton as Tamina, Ben Kingsley as Nizam.
Fantagraphics to reprint Bushmiller's Nancy
Funny papers fans will dig this:
Fantagraphics Books has acquired the rights from United Media to publish Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller, beginning in Spring 2010.
According to Co-Publisher Gary Groth, Fantagraphics has contracted to publish the first 24 years of Nancy dailies, beginning in 1938 (when Nancy took over the strip from its former star, Fritzi Ritz) through 1961. "If the demand is there," Groth noted, "we will of course want to continue into the 1960s and beyond, if for no other reason than to run all those great 'hippie' Nancy episodes. But we'll cross that bridge in 2016 when we finish publishing the books we've contracted for."
"I was a late Nancy convert," admits Co-Publisher Kim Thompson, who will be editing the series. "It wasn't until Denis Kitchen published his Nancy collections in 1989 and 1990, after people like Bill Griffith and Scott McCloud had been touting it for years, that I finally 'got' it. It's one of the all-time greats -- way ahead of its time in its own goofy way. Ever since then it's been at the back of my mind to do a more extensive reprinting, and our ongoing successes with classic reprint series these past five years told me the time is now ripe."
Each volume of dailies will contain four years and be designed by Fantagraphics Art Director Jacob Covey. Cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) will provide the introduction to the first volume. Each volume will be 8" x 8" in flexibound format and retail for $29.99. Information regarding collections of Nancy Sunday strips will be announced at a later date.
"I envision Nancy being influenced by pop art and constructivist design in a way that will complement the geometric style of the strip and also give a nod to Mark Newgarden's deconstruction of Nancy's forms," says Covey, whose designs on books like Popeye, Willie & Joe and Beasts! have garnered numerous awards. "In a word: ‘POP'. Like Popeye, I want it to seem fun so kids can connect with it but smart so adults can look at it more deeply. But where Popeye has a Victorian nod, this will be modernist."
Fantagraphics will begin with the "second" volume, 1942-1945. According to Thompson, "While we have access to great, nearly complete runs for most of the 1940s dailies, it looks like it will be far more trouble to collect the 1938 and 1939 material. So we'll be putting out a call to Nancy fans, both over the internet and in the first book itself, until we eventually secure the missing strips to double back and release the best possible 1938-1941 volume."
The character of Nancy, a precocious eight-year-old girl, first appeared in the strip Fritzi Ritz. After Larry Whittington began Fritzi Ritz in 1922, it was taken over by Bushmiller three years later. In 1933, Bushmiller introduced Fritzi's niece, Nancy. Soon she dominated the strip, retitled Nancy in 1938. At its peak in the 1970s, Nancy ran in more than 880 newspapers.
In addition to being one of the great comic strips of the 20th Century, Nancy is a bonafide pop culture icon, having captured the imagination of such artists as Andy Warhol, Joe Brainard, Scott McCloud, Bill Griffith, Mark Newgarden, and many others.
In Spring 2010, Fantagraphics will also publish an revised and expanded book edition of cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik's seminal 1988 essay, "How to Read Nancy." In addition to explicating the brilliance of Bushmiller's cartooning, it also has become a landmark educational essay about visual storytelling through the analysis of Bushmiller's work.
To quote from How to Read Nancy: "To say that Nancy is a simple gag strip about a simple-minded snot-nosed kid is to miss the point completely. Nancy only appears to be simple at a casual glance. Like architect Mies Van Der Rohe, the simplicity is a carefully designed function of a complex amalgam of formal rules laid out by the designer. To look at Bushmiller as an architect is entirely appropriate, for Nancy is, in a sense, a blue print for a comic strip. Walls, floors, rocks, trees, Ice-cream cones, motion lines, midgets and principals are carefully positioned with no need for further embellishment. And they are laid out with one purpose in mind - to get the gag across. Minimalist? Formalist? Structuralist? Cartoonist!"
Fantagraphics Books has acquired the rights from United Media to publish Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller, beginning in Spring 2010.
According to Co-Publisher Gary Groth, Fantagraphics has contracted to publish the first 24 years of Nancy dailies, beginning in 1938 (when Nancy took over the strip from its former star, Fritzi Ritz) through 1961. "If the demand is there," Groth noted, "we will of course want to continue into the 1960s and beyond, if for no other reason than to run all those great 'hippie' Nancy episodes. But we'll cross that bridge in 2016 when we finish publishing the books we've contracted for."
"I was a late Nancy convert," admits Co-Publisher Kim Thompson, who will be editing the series. "It wasn't until Denis Kitchen published his Nancy collections in 1989 and 1990, after people like Bill Griffith and Scott McCloud had been touting it for years, that I finally 'got' it. It's one of the all-time greats -- way ahead of its time in its own goofy way. Ever since then it's been at the back of my mind to do a more extensive reprinting, and our ongoing successes with classic reprint series these past five years told me the time is now ripe."
Each volume of dailies will contain four years and be designed by Fantagraphics Art Director Jacob Covey. Cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) will provide the introduction to the first volume. Each volume will be 8" x 8" in flexibound format and retail for $29.99. Information regarding collections of Nancy Sunday strips will be announced at a later date.
"I envision Nancy being influenced by pop art and constructivist design in a way that will complement the geometric style of the strip and also give a nod to Mark Newgarden's deconstruction of Nancy's forms," says Covey, whose designs on books like Popeye, Willie & Joe and Beasts! have garnered numerous awards. "In a word: ‘POP'. Like Popeye, I want it to seem fun so kids can connect with it but smart so adults can look at it more deeply. But where Popeye has a Victorian nod, this will be modernist."
Fantagraphics will begin with the "second" volume, 1942-1945. According to Thompson, "While we have access to great, nearly complete runs for most of the 1940s dailies, it looks like it will be far more trouble to collect the 1938 and 1939 material. So we'll be putting out a call to Nancy fans, both over the internet and in the first book itself, until we eventually secure the missing strips to double back and release the best possible 1938-1941 volume."
The character of Nancy, a precocious eight-year-old girl, first appeared in the strip Fritzi Ritz. After Larry Whittington began Fritzi Ritz in 1922, it was taken over by Bushmiller three years later. In 1933, Bushmiller introduced Fritzi's niece, Nancy. Soon she dominated the strip, retitled Nancy in 1938. At its peak in the 1970s, Nancy ran in more than 880 newspapers.
In addition to being one of the great comic strips of the 20th Century, Nancy is a bonafide pop culture icon, having captured the imagination of such artists as Andy Warhol, Joe Brainard, Scott McCloud, Bill Griffith, Mark Newgarden, and many others.
In Spring 2010, Fantagraphics will also publish an revised and expanded book edition of cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik's seminal 1988 essay, "How to Read Nancy." In addition to explicating the brilliance of Bushmiller's cartooning, it also has become a landmark educational essay about visual storytelling through the analysis of Bushmiller's work.
To quote from How to Read Nancy: "To say that Nancy is a simple gag strip about a simple-minded snot-nosed kid is to miss the point completely. Nancy only appears to be simple at a casual glance. Like architect Mies Van Der Rohe, the simplicity is a carefully designed function of a complex amalgam of formal rules laid out by the designer. To look at Bushmiller as an architect is entirely appropriate, for Nancy is, in a sense, a blue print for a comic strip. Walls, floors, rocks, trees, Ice-cream cones, motion lines, midgets and principals are carefully positioned with no need for further embellishment. And they are laid out with one purpose in mind - to get the gag across. Minimalist? Formalist? Structuralist? Cartoonist!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)