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First things first – if you didn’t get a copy of my recent newsletter, then go here. Make sure you don’t miss future updates and sign up here!
Above is some of the original concept art for one of my latest projects that will feature comic art, animation, after effects and live action documentary footage, all blended together. It’s a unique opportunity to get out from behind my drawing board and work as part of a team, which I’m really enjoying, though I can’t share too many more details with you until we’re into the next stage of the project. Early days yet. There’ll be a trailer for you in early May, so be sure to check back in then. I finally bit the bullet and got a copy of toonboom after what felt like a lifetime of wrestling with flash, and so far, so good. Aside from some jaw-droppingly bizarre keyboard controls (alt + a = brush tool, anyone?). I was actually prompted to get TB over anything else after seeing the trailer for the oscar-nominated Chico and Rita.
Speaking of nominations, the Yiddish-themed anthology I collaborated with Harvey Pekar on, Yiddishkeit, has been nominated for an Eisner award for Best Anthology! Kudos to comics stalwart Paul Buhle for getting us there. Clearly this post, there’s no I in team. There is one in Eisner though.
As promised above, here is a link to the Yiddishkeit slideshow detailing my process of turning a comics script into finished pages, including using visual references, digital colouring in photoshop, thumbnailing, all that good stuff. Here is the Kickstarter campaign to erect a statue in Harvey’s native Cleveland.
Many thanks to Sterling Warner at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose for inviting me to talk about my work and comics journalism in general on Wednesday. It was great talking to the next generation of visual storytellers afterwards and I hope that some of them have made it here to the Archcomix online HQ – if so, welcome! Be sure to browse comics using the drop-down menus at the top of the page.
Meanwhile this week Alcatraz continues to rumble ahead, with the finish line now finally in sight; a new animation-based project involving Vietnam is in the works; I’m building another interactive piece, this time on the history of the International Criminal Court; pencilling some pages on a potential legal academic graphic novel; working on the follow-up to my crisis comix for Marketplace; AND laying the groundwork for my follow-up to last year’s Borderland, which will tell the story of trafficking in the US. Oh and the Stanford Graphic Novel Project! More about that on the soon to be re-launched”teaching” page – stay tuned for updates.
As I mentioned in this previous post, about a month ago I spent a week in the woods outside LA (near Palm Springs), 6000 feet up a mountain, teaching a course on graphic novel writing. The adult students were amazingly dedicated and came on leaps and bounds in their visual storytelling skills, as you can see from the above tiers by Claudia Bear. Click here to visit her new site and read the rest of her comic. More from the other students to come.
In other news: The first mini-review of Yiddishkeit, featuring the 55 page comic I did with Harvey Pekar, is up online here. I’ll post more about it in the Non-fiction page (click on the above tab to access it normally). Here’s the official book page at Abrams if you’re interested in reading about the other collaborators, amongst them the mighty Peter Kuper and Spain Rodriguez.
Comics journalism is in the headlines more than ever these days: check out these two articles, one from The Atlantic (with a list of must-read titles), the other, from Truthout by Adam Bessie, features myself, Ted Rall, Sarah Glidden, Matt Bors and of course Joe Sacco in a round-up of the form’s movers and shakers.
