Jun 10 2008

MAD/E.C. Comics Panel at Heroes Con ’08

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As mentioned in my last post, I–along with pal Craig Fischer–have been working on putting together a special two-part panel for the upcoming Heroes Con all about the legacy of Mad Magazine and E.C. Comics. If’n you’re going to be at the convention, (and you darn-well should be) please consider attending. We’ve pulled out all the stops to try to make this an extra special, not your ordinary convention panel. Some notable stuff:

  • Preview of the forthcoming Fantagraphics Complete Humbug
  • A panel discussion with longtime MAD editor Al Feldstein himself
  • Did I mention Roger Langridge and Richard “Cul de Sac” Thompson will be on that panel? Well now I have.
  • Several original pages of MAD and E.C. art that are sure to blow you away

Anyway, here’s the full bit:

[SAT., 3PM] – NOT THE USUAL GANG OF IDIOTS: EC COMICS PANEL
Part 1: Kurtzman for Beginners

In the first half of this look at two of EC Comics most important creators,
we present a Harvey Kurtzman retrospective that’s a veritable smorgasbord of
presentations and events, including an overview of Kurtzman’s career by
Thought Balloonist blogger Craig Fischer, and a close reading of
“3-Dimensions!” a MAD story by Kurtzman and Wally Wood, by MIDNIGHT SUN
cartoonist Ben Towle. Plus: a sneak peak at the new Kurtzman COMPLETE HUMBUG
collection, forthcoming from Fantagraphics!

[SAT., 4PM] NOT THE USUAL GANG OF IDIOTS: EC COMICS PANEL
Part 2: A Chat With Al Feldstein (and Friends)

Ben Towle and Craig Fischer host an in-depth interview with Al Feldstein, EC
artist and writer and MAD MAGAZINE editor extraordinaire! Along for the ride
is a pair of celebrity funsters-FRED THE CLOWN and FIN FANG FOUR cartoonist
Roger Langridge and CUL DE SAC comic stripper Richard Thompson-ready to
roast and grill Feldstein about The Lighter Side of Editing America’s #1
Humor Magazine!

Jun 10 2008

Mad Magazine’s Potrzebie on Google

If you use Google, (and who the heck doesn’t?) you may know that it features a calculator that can convert between various units of measure. If, for example, you search for “pints to quarts,” Google will return the correct conversion, in this case, “1 US pint = 0.5 US quarts.”

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But here’s something funny I stumbled upon: today, I was  putting together a poster for a panel I’m involved with at this year’s Heroes Con (more on that later) and I wanted to make sure I had spelled “potrzebie” correctly.  If you read Mad Magazine, (and who the heck doesn’t?) you know that “potrzebie” is a sort of nonsense word that became a recurring gag in the magazine.  In issue 33, Mad published a table of the “Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures,” whose base unit of measure was the potrzebie which supposedly equaled the thickness of Mad issue 26, or 2.263348517438173216473 mm.

While this gag is well-known Mad aficionados, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Google is in on the joke:

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Jun 05 2008

A Few More Midnight Sun Reviews

Midnight Sun has now been out for about five months and I keep thinking that I’ve seen the last review of the book pop up online, but here are a few extras that arrived in my Gmail box courtesy of Google alerts. First up is from Ray Ellis over at BlogCritics.org.

At its heart, Midnight Sun isn’t about a desperate rescue mission, or about coming to grips with one’s mortality or even about a final shot at redemption. It’s more about how events, seemingly unrelated, converge and influence each other, making for larger, equally unrelated events. Towle paints the story in stark lines, accentuated by minimal gray washes, creating an effect that reflects both the growing desperation of the stranded explorers and the edgy boredom of the rescuers and the reporter.” (Read more…)

… And another from  Claudia  Gremler at  ReadMe.cc:

These drawings show a distinctly human touch which again contrasts Towle’s work with the hero worship so commonly observed in the treatment of the topic of exploration yet the tragic dimension of the expedition is not diminished.  (Read more…)

I’m currently hard at work on a new GN of my own as well as handling penciling and inking on a book for Hyperion, but it’s great to see that folks are still picking up Midnight Sun and enjoying it.

Jun 03 2008

Shelf Porn

There’s a “shelf porn” thread over at the Comics Journal message board in which folks are posting pictures of their shelves o’ comics-related stuff and I figured I’d add a posting of the bookshelf in my studio. Here’s what I’ve got:

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I don’t really own any super-rare books or anything–mostly it’s just stuff you could pick up at any Borders–but here’re a few items maybe of note.

1) Toy airplane made out of PBR cans – As far as I can tell, this is a staple item at pretty much every flea market in the South.

2) Baseball signed by James Sturm, with a drawing of one of the Golem’s Mighty Swing characters on it.

3) Original Andy Capp from the early ’60s – I found this at a local consignment store for, I think, $40.00

4) A heap of old clipped Wash Tubbs strips from ’41 I think.

5) “Craft” books get segregated to this top corner, lest they contaminate the rest of the stuff.

6) These are all books on perspective. I’m a big perspective nerd, occasionally teach perspective classes, and would like some day to put together a decent book on practical perspective for artists (the ones currently available pretty much all bite in my opinion).

7) Comics mags all here – Stuff like Comics Journal, IJOCA, and Comic Art.

8) $#@*ing boxes of “floppies” that won’t fit anywhere. If I can’t figure out a good place for these soon, my wife may just put them on the curb (and I’d be secretly relieved if she did).

May 28 2008

Sketchbook 5/28/08

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