Tagged: Washington

ComicMix QuickPicks – January 5, 2009

ComicMix QuickPicks – January 5, 2009

Today’s installment of comic-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest…

* Missed this one in the holiday wackiness: A federal appeals panel said that child pornography is illegal even if the pictures are drawn, affirming the nation’s first conviction under a 2003 federal law against such cartoons. Even though there are no actual children involved. So Dwight Whorley of Richmond is serving 20 years in prison on an anime charge, even though he could just be in jail on the photographs. Time to donate to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund…

* Washington, D.C., library officials have proposed a ban on sleeping at public libraries. Our solution? More graphic novels! No one will sleep through those thrill-packed extravagnz– oops. Too much Stan Lee there.

* Recession? How can there be a recession when you can pre-order Captain Kirk’s chair for $2200 retail?

* That’s Sir Terry Pratchett to you, buddy.

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Stan Lee Receives National Medal of Arts Award

Stan Lee Receives National Medal of Arts Award

  • News
  • November 19, 2008

Stan Lee was honored at the White House when President George W. Bush bestowed the National Medal of Arts award.  He was among the nine recipients for this year’s award.

Here’s the complete write up:

Washington, D.C. — President George W. Bush today announced the recipients of the 2008 National Medal of Arts. Nine medals were presented by the President and Mrs. Laura Bush in an East Room ceremony at the White House. The National Medal of Arts is a White House initiative managed by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA organizes and oversees the National Medal of Arts nomination process and notifies the artists of their selection to receive a medal, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence.

"These individuals and organizations represent the variety and scope of great American art, from the traditional fine arts to popular culture,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "This lifetime honor recognizes their exceptional contributions to our national culture."

In a surprise announcement at the ceremony, President Bush announced the award of five Presidential Citizens Medals to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Bruce Cole, President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Chair Adair Margo, and Anne-Imelda M. Radice and Robert S. Martin, the current and former directors of the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The official citation for Chairman Gioia states: "A distinguished poet and educator, Dana Gioia has helped strengthen the role of the arts in our country. He has advanced some of our most treasured traditions, expanded public support for the arts and arts education, and increased the understanding and appreciation of the arts among our nation’s youth. The United States honors Dana Gioia for his dedication to fostering creativity and expression and for helping preserve America’s rich artistic legacy."

The 2008 National Medal of Arts Recipients

Olivia de Havilland, actress, Paris, France
Fisk Jubilee Singers, choral ensemble, Nashville, TN
Ford’s Theatre Society, theater and museum, Washington, DC
Hank Jones, jazz musician, NEA Jazz Master (1989), New York, NY
Stan Lee, comic book writer, producer, Los Angeles, CA
José Limón Dance Foundation, modern dance company and institute, New York, NY
Jesús Moroles, sculptor, Rockport, TX
The Presser Foundation, music patron, Haverford, PA
The Sherman Brothers, songwriting team, Los Angeles, CA and London, England

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Review: ‘J. Edgar Hoover’ by Rick Geary

Review: ‘J. Edgar Hoover’ by Rick Geary

J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography
By Rick Geary
Hill & Wang/Serious Comics, 2008, $16.95

Rick Geary has spent the last decade quietly turning himself into America’s most prolific and accomplished historical cartoonist, primarily with his long sequence of “[[[A Treasury of Victorian Murder]]].” (If I were Larry Gonick, I’d be very careful crossing the street, knowing someone so accomplished, so talented, so close in the alphabet, and so well-versed in murder methods was out there.) But with [[[J. Edgar Hoover]]] Geary branches out slightly – he’s still within the world of crime and criminals, but he’s on the side of the “good guys” (more or less) and telling one life story instead of focusing on a particular crime.

Hoover was an exceptionally divisive figure throughout most of his life: loved by the law ‘n order crowd and loathed by those he spied on (which was nearly everyone to the left of Spiro Agnew). These days, though, I’d guess Hoover is mostly thought of as a quaint figure – the supposedly cross-dressing boogey man of someone else’s youth.

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Other Than Myself, by John Ostrander

Other Than Myself, by John Ostrander

  • News
  • April 17, 2008

I remember the morning after the primary election where Harold Washington won the Democratic nomination for Mayor of Chicago, becoming the first African-American man to do so. It was February 22, 1983 – 25 years ago. The white voters were split between then incumbent mayor Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley, son of long-time mayor Richard J. Daley and who is currently mayor of Chicago.

Whoever wins the Democratic mayoral primary is de facto mayor of Chicago. That’s a given. The last Republican mayor, William Hale Thompson, left that office in 1931.

There is no two-party system in Chicago. At best, it’s a party and a half. As a result, Washington was going to be the new mayor of Chicago and, oh, how the white establishment cried! One white Democratic politician actually considered switching parties to oppose Washington in the mayoral election rather than have Chicago face the terrible possibility of a Negro mayor. The fact that he didn’t simply means that he realized that the habit of voting Democratic was too ingrained.

I learned exactly what it meant on my way to work that day. I used the “L” at that time – Chicago’s rail transit line. My neighborhood was “iffy” – right on the borderline between an okay area and a slum and was gradually slipping downwards. That meant you walked around with your ‘spider-sense” definitely on. That was especially true of the L station.

I paid my fare and walk up the stairs to wait for the train. There was only one other person up there – a “Negro.”

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The Writes Of Spring, by Dennis O’Neil

The Writes Of Spring, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • April 1, 2008

As I sit down to write this, I’m less than five hours from midnight on March 23rd and so it might be appropriate to wish you a Happy Easter, or Happy Pasha if you’re an Oriental Christian, or Happy Purim. Or maybe I should give a shout-out to Aphrodite, Ashtoreth, Astarté, Demeter, Hathor, Ishtar, Kali, Ostara – all deities who were celebrated around the spring equinox and, as far as my extremely limited and unreliable knowledge goes, all of whom were connected to fertility, which figures: Spring equinox = end of winter = new life = let’s have a party.

Or…let’s let one stand for all and just celebrate the goddess whose name gives the holiday it’s name: No less an authority than The Venerable Bede, an early Christian scholar, wrote that Easter was named after the Saxon goddess Eostre, and if you can’t trust the Venerable Bede, well…

I like Easter, and tomorrow I may do something celebratory, even if it’s only to walk in the park down the road. (Yeah, us old guys really know how to tear it loose.) It’s a real holiday, as evidenced by all the ways it’s been celebrated over the millennia – see the goddess list above – and I think that means that it acknowledges and celebrates something deep in our collective culture, our life on this planet, probably our genomes. The catalogue of such holidays is short: there’s the various festivals of light that occur around the winter solstice – Merry Christmas, all – and around the fall equinox that generally involve harvests and eating, and Easter, et. al. All happen at seasonal changes and all involve the Basics: birth, death, light, dark, and survival.

You don’t have to believe in the literal truth of a mythology to accept the realities that underlie it.

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On This Day: The National Gallery of Art

On This Day: The National Gallery of Art

  • News
  • March 17, 2008

The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C. on March 17, 1941.

Financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon established the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust just before his death in 1937, and it was this trust that worked with Congress to establish the art museum. John Russell Pope, who later designed the Jefferson Memorial, designed the original building, and I.M. PEI designed an East Wing addition that was completed in 1978.

The gallery was centered around twenty-one masterpieces originally owned by Catherine II of Russia—Mellon purchased the collection in the early 1930s.

 

On This Day: The 20th Amendment

On This Day: The 20th Amendment

  • News
  • February 6, 2008

Yeah, so we’ve all been completely inundated with political coverage on this Super Tuesday week. But if we’re gonna do this right, it should be noted that today in 1933, the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect.

The Amendment reduced the time between Presidential and Congressional elections and the beginning of the elected officials’ terms. Originally, there were four months between the final election tally and the beginning of a newly elected official’s term, due to the time required to get your business in order and travel to Washington, D.C.

On a related note, this is also the week after James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, the original Captain America’s sidekick, grabbed a gun and a new costume and became the new Captain America! How does that relate to the 20th Amendment, you ask? Well, the connection should be clear – and if it isn’t, the terrorists have already won.

 

The Michael Davis Network

The Michael Davis Network

  • News
  • January 18, 2008

 

It’s no secret I hate most reality television. I think shows like The Real World and The Real Housewives Of Orange County are real stupid. 
 
No, that’s not right, I like reality TV I just don’t like the “I’m better than you” attitude that some of these shows reflect. Take The Real Housewives Of Orange County for instance. This show is about these elitist bunch of middle age women who think that money and status are all there is in life. One woman on the show has a son who has serious problems so her solution is to kick him out of the house. OK, that’s tough love, I get that. 
 
However…
 
The mom is then upset that her son (who she kicked out) moved into the home of her husbands ex-wife. She is very hurt that her son would do that to her. 
 
What? 
 
This “mother” throws her son out of the house and then she is hurt because her son moves into her husband ex-wife’s house. Forget the fact the kid had nowhere to go, she could not get over the fact that he would hurt her that way. 
 
What kind of parent is this? 
 
Does having money make you a heartless self-centered bitch? 
 

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The Mighty Motor Sapiens Roar To Life

The Mighty Motor Sapiens Roar To Life

  • News
  • August 29, 2007

Rowdy.com has partnered with Insight Studios Group to offer The Mighty Motor Sapiens, a new online daily comic strip that combines high speed action, fast cars, humor and the entire planet being taken over by lizard people.

With new installments appearing every weekday beginning September 3, 2007, the story begins 18 months after the world has been taken over by a race of the Morisoni, lizard people from the center of the Earth. Despite the odd change in circumstances, life has continued and things seem disturbingly okay. Sure, they took out Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Paris, but on the other hand they took out Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Paris. And for some reason they wiped out everyone’s credit histories, too.

Now the Morisoni control the world and their military bases are everywhere. The Lizards live among us, but this new arrangement seems to be working. Four teenagers, Cam Corman, Hannah Barbario, Gigs Brewster and Maddie Brewster, haven’t seen much of an impact from the changes. Yet.

Springing from the minds of writer-artist Daniel Krall (Oni’s One Plus One), writer-artist Mark Wheatley (Frankenstein Mobster), and writer Robert Tinnell (Feast of the Seven Fishes), The Mighty Motor Sapiens was created as an exclusive feature for the Rowdy.com web community.  The strip will be written and drawn by Krall with additional material by Wheatley and Tinnell. All three creators are veterans of both print and online comics. They are joined by inker Craig Taillerfer (The Chelation Kid), with colors provided by Krall’s studio and lettering by Matthew Plog. The strip is produced by Insight Studios.

State of newspaper cartooning

State of newspaper cartooning

  • News
  • March 23, 2007

Via Tom Spurgeon, The Tacoma Daily Index’s Todd Matthews examines the current state and status of political and editorial cartoonists, with an emphasis on the Washington state papers.  Quotes like "The state of newspaper cartooning nationally is not a happy one" and "Political cartoonists are a dying breed" do not seem to bode well.

Similarly, via Heidi, Lev Grossman at Time Magazine also observes that "Comic strips in newspapers are dying. They’re starved for space, crushed down to a fraction of their original size. They’re choked creatively by ironfisted syndicates and the 1950s-era family values that newspapers impose."  and like Matthews, Grossman is hopeful that the new media will be the savior of editorial cartoons and strips, taking a more in-depth look at webcomics.

ComicMix will continue to follow the death and rebirth of these well-established artformsm, to see how well newspaper features can still flourish without being in the newspapers themselves.

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