Sally here with Jenny Zervakis (in real life!), a big announcement from Caitlin McGurk, and other comics and news of note.
————————————————————————————————
One of the highlights of going to the Small Press Expo last weekend in Bethesda, MD, was getting to meet Jenny Zervakis (above). Her comics are my favorite discovery of the past year, and I have been harassing everyone I know into getting The Complete Strange Growths, the collection of her work published by John Porcellino and Spit & a Half Distro. I wrote about this collection back in June (read the review HERE) and more recently about Strange Growths #14 (HERE).
Buzzing around SPX in the last hour of the last day, after having spent most of my time running workshops for Comics Workbook, it was a delight to catch sight of 3 more issues of Strange Growths on the corner of a table, and a thrilling surprise to see that Jenny herself was standing behind them.
I burbled something about how much I liked her comics, and how much I appreciated that they were about her own impressions of the world and what she saw as important or strange or beautiful, told with poetry and humor. She said her comics had been turned down a lot, and not published in comics anthologies in the 90’s because they lacked a focus on “women’s issues”. That’s exactly what I like about them – they speak of her as a person and an artist, and not “just” as a woman.
The new (to me) issues pictured above round out my collection of the “complete” Strange Growths, compiling stories and dreams and poems from 2002-2013. They are excellent!
You can get copies of Jenny’s work from Spit & a Half Distro, HERE, or if you’re at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus next weekend stop by the Spit & a Half Distro table.
————————————————————————————————
Above is a clip from one of the panels at SPX, featuring November Garcia (speaking), and Marc Sobel (moderating), Keith Knight, Jennifer Hayden, and Glynnis Fawkes. The panel was on autobio comics, and was just one part of a great lineup of programming that was heavily dominated by female makers. Many kudos to the organizers who made this happen (especially Rob Clough!)
————————————————————————————————
The greatest bit of news I came across last week is this: Caitlin McGurk (associate curator of The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum) has been tapped to write the text for IDW’s upcoming Library Of American Comics Essentials collection of Edwina Dumm‘s Cap Stubbs and Tippie comic strip (coming out in 2018)! I knew that Caitlin had been pouring over the Edwina Dumm items in the BICLM collection throughout the summer, and I guess this is why. She is “thrilled” about the project.
On IDW’s The Library of American Comics blog Bruce Canwell wrote in the official announcement:
“You see, over the span of time we’ve intermittently been working on bringing Cap Stubbs to you, we’ve met one particular Edwina fan, a highly-respected comics historian, who knows more about Edwina than I do and is even more enthusiastic about writing this Introduction than I am (and that’s saying something!). Which is why I’m pleased as the well-known punch to tell you that Caitlin McGurk, associate curator of The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, will be your guide on this particular tour of Edwina’s fine comics creations. Since one of our overarching goals is to provide you with the best information available for this, and for every book we release, I’m more than willing to yield this particular floor to Caitlin.“
Bruce Canwell and Dean Mullaney have had this project in mind for over a decade, and it’ll be the first of at least two projects involving the work of Edwina Dumm. You can read more about the book HERE. Congratulations to Caitlin for getting to be involved in bringing more of Edwina Dumm’s work to the general public. I personally can not wait for this book!
————————————————————————————————
Chicken Noodle Soup
- Heidi MacDonald shares her SPX 2017 report on The Comics Beat – The Year of Getting Woke.
- There’s a new comic by Ulli Lust up on her site, part of her series in the magazine Exberliner – read it HERE.
- Cathy G. Johnson recently published her graduate thesis – Developing the Cartooning Mind: The History, Theory, Benefit and Practice of Comic Books in Visual Arts Education – and she has shared some of it on her website, with the option to read it all via email request. Check it out HERE.
- Robert Kirby reviews Hannah K. Lee‘s Language Barrier on The Comics Journal – read it HERE.
- The A. V. Club has an exclusive preview of Language Barrier by Hannah K. Lee available HERE.
- Smash Pages interviews Glynnis Fawkes, and talks about her Greek Diary – HERE.
- Kim O’Connor reviews Simon Hanselmann’s Portrait.
- There’s a new comic up on Mutha Magazine – The Enormity of the Everydayness by Sophia Wiedeman Glock.
- Sophie Yanow is serializing her new comic on Patreon – a 192-page book that is already thumb-nailed. She just needs a few cheerleaders and a bit of rent money to get it done. Check it out HERE.
- Whit Taylor was a recent guest editor for the Illustrated PEN, and chose to excerpt Ben Passmore’s Your Black Friend, and Robyn Smith’s The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town – read them both HERE, as well as Whit’s commentary. Whit also reviewed Katie Skelly’s My Pretty Vampire, and Keiler Roberts’ Sunburning over on Roar.
- The Guardian features Tillie Walden and talks about her new comic Spinning – HERE.
————————————————————————————————
Suzy and Cecil – 9-22-2017 – by Gabriella Tito