Schools
-Comics Workbook
-Parsons School of Design Illustration (dir. Ben Katchor)
-UW-Madison (Lynda Barry)
-CCS? Lost touch with it this year. Same with Wash U (Dowd, Zettwoch, Tim Lane)
-MCAD (where I, Zak Sally, and Tom K. teach, among others (link TK). Anders Nilsen also taught there.)
-The school that hired Sousanis/
-Yale? I don’t know that much about comics skools, to be honest
Pap Pap (and which I paid money for)
-Last Look / Patience / Ware’s Guardian strip and NYer work / Spiegelman’s one pager
-Blammo #9 (moustache, also see: Johnny Ryan)
-Baron Bean / Krazy Kat 1916
-Jim Woodring on Facebook,
-Kim Deitch on Facebook,
-Carol Tyler on FB
CARTOONIST TYPES: Princess vs. Old Grandpa vs. Street Punk vs. Sage/Witch vs. Dad/Mom vs. Content Provider models
-Method: have a relatively large audience, give them free content every once in a while, keep a few levels distance between oneself and them (be cool), stay on top of the Latest Topics, draw big checks from big cities, somehow.
CF&BJ
-Would like to see the new Ben Jones zine, where can I get one? I need to put aside a weekend to read that interview with N. Rudick and think about it.
-CF’s CALL Magazine.
Deep Level Moves
-My life being what it is, I’ve lost contact with some of the cartoonists I’ve learned the most from over the years. I see them, but not much of their work. When they do put work out, it’s too dense, somehow, and I can’t penetrate. If anything, I draw less from a deep knowledge of their work and I just skim off energy what I know is going on deep in the comic, because I know how deep they are seeing, beyond what I see. Their body of work helps sustain me as I drew Ganges #6. cf Anders, Sammy, Marc Bell, John P, Ron Rege, G. Bell, Clowes, Burns, Ware, etc.
Health of the Elder Ones, Careers of Peers, Middle Managers, and Caretakers
-Who is on what medication, who is helping, who is working on retrospectives, who is working on archiving, who has new work, who got divorced, how everyone is doing. Dealing with Alvin’s death.
Tumblrs:
-Santoro’s influence dominates my tumblr, but there are so many other spheres of comics on the internet now too. Need ethnographic data.
-4 Color scans of old comic book pages with sharpness on the dots, pages from the Heritage Auctions
MINN
-RIP Big Brain, Peace to Drivas
-Anders moved to Portland
-Nostalgia Zone and Dreamhaven are incredible, stores of my dreams. Minneapolis is a book lover's dream, it's almost too much for me. I may bury myself in books here.
-Magers and Quinn (best simple comics selection in Minneapolis?)
-trying to get a weekly thing going! (Shout out to STL Drawing Crew)
-Sam Gould??? Univocal???
-Wish I had talked to Eddie Campbell when he was in town. His line was too long at the Book Fair, is my bad excuse.
Bargain Bins:
-DreamHaven (p. good, bw boom, manga, mid 90s)
-Midway Books (89-92 junk, kind of shitty actually)
Comic Books (via The Source in St. Paul)
-Klaus by Grant Morrison
-something about demons, Rafael Grampa mixed with Kerascoet Woman’s face
-Sergio Aragones
-Island
-thinking about the career of John Romita Jr
-thinking about when Cerebus was monthly in the mid 90s
Libraries
The Hosmer Library’s collection, and the MCAD Library’s collections (worth a visit)
New Wave/Grimy Keyboard Krew, Pacific Rim and Genderwave
DeForge, Klaus, Breakdwon, Landfill, Dane Martin, A Degen, BMW
Critical Discourse
-I don’t really follow it, but I’m interested.
-Issues of Morality and Art. Groths of Twitter? Nadel is focused on NYC issues. Tisserand’s Herriman book. Twitter is brutal but necessary (like TCJ and the TCJ Messageboard, maybe?).
-In comics, critical discourse often is mixed in with a lot of Outraged Fan Ranting, as it should be. Outrage lately about sex and superheroes, of course. What others should be doing instead.
-Don’t know what goes in YA Librarian or Parent or Walking Dead, Brian K Vaughn, Saga, circles, but that’s another huge part of comics I often wonder about—what’s that all about? Near enemies.
Publishers
-D&Q and Fanta Anniversaries.
-Breakdown/Landfill, the best UK comics publishers
-I like a lot of Retrofit comics
-Self Made Hero and No Brow are interesting. NoBrow will last much longer and seems more smart. Interesting how both sidestep US/UK Comics history for the most part, and go either France or Japan.
-2D Cloud and Uncivilized, MINNEAPOLIS
-Canada. Annie and Peter and Devlin/Burns. Chester Brown and DeForge/Tamaki lifestyle cartoonists. Patrick Kyle. Marc Bell spending most of the year in Minneapolis and not seeing him enough.
-YA and Children's comics, the stuff I see at the Hosmer library. Toon Books
ME
-I didn’t read as much as I used to, but I read a ton, relative to most people. I read a lot of Olde Canon Comics (The Best Comics): Baron Bean, Wash Tubbs, Gasoline Alley.
-I put out 2 zines, Comix Skook USA #4 and #5. I drew most of Ganges #6, but a lot of it was first written in 2014. A lot has changed in my life since then. I may be losing my mind, but I also think I’m drawing the best work of my life (the question is how much is that saying?).
-The Internet: my daily life is full, so I don’t look at it that much anymore. I don’t like it that much. I prefer books and magazines and reading things in print. I still draw a lot of inspiration and energy from it, though. I’m trying not to tell anyone about how they should live their life, other than to buy my comics. Dealing with spam is like a major thing in our lives, what a world. Who will read all the spam? Who will speak for the spam? Who will collect the spam and archive it for future historians? Who cares that I posted this on my blog?
I just read the new Blammo and it was amazing. Everyone should read it. When I clean up my apartment in a few days maybe I’ll upload a longer list of things in Part 2.
Dec. 17, 2016
