A MUST READ for all artists, art worldians, literary folks and comic fans, now online: One of the greatest essays of all time on comics, fine art, classism, and elitism by the super litereray critic and theorist, the late Leslie Fiedle. His "The Middle Against Both Ends" : >http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1955aug-00016?View=PDF
I had the great joy of corresponding with Fiedler close to the end of his life via email --- he himself said he was on his "probable deathbed" in the hospital. He wrote up till the end. a giant of a thinker, reader, theorist and man.
A 55 minute speech, with images, by artist and art historian Mark Staff Brandl. Originally presented at the CAA (College Art Association, art historians organization) annual conference, as well as at the Kunstschule Lichtenstein, in 2010. It concerns description and criticism of the standard conceptions and models of fine art history and the history of comics, while offering a new one model for conceiving of and teaching these histories.
A video about what is probably the last full comic to be done by my mentor and art master, comic artist Gene Colan. A comic done in uninked pencils. Amazing from an 80-plus year-old genius.
Click on image to see full, enlarged version, and click on that enlargement to enlarge it even more.
A comic --- oops, a piece of sequential art --- in which the artist Steve Hamann braves the Sharkpit to finally meet Mark Staff Brandl, discuss with Wesley Kimler, see art by both, and comment on it all!
On the Artbeat on Chicago Tonight, They talk to and about the up-and-coming, local comic book artist whose work has taken her around the world. Christian Farr goes one-on-one with artist Ashley Woods finds out what makes her unique in her industry.
San Francisco, CA: The Cartoon Art Museum is proud to announce that Gene Colan is the recipient of the 2008 Sparky Award, which was presented to him by CAM founder Malcolm Whyte during the museum's "Salute to Gene Colan" on Thursday, December 4, 2008.
The Sparky Award is named in honor of Charles "Sparky" Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. Schulz was nicknamed "Sparky" after the horse Sparkplug featured in the comic strip Barney Google. The Cartoon Art Museum would not exist without benefactors like Sparky Schulz and his wife, Jeannie. The Sparky Award is presented on behalf of the Cartoon Art Museum and the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Library.
The award celebrates the significant contributions of cartoon artists who embody the talent, innovation and humanity of Charles M. Schulz. Past recipients include Schulz himself, Sergio Aragones, Gus Arriola, Carl Barks, Will Eisner, Creig Flessel, Phil Frank, Lou Grant, Chuck Jones, Ward Kimball, Gary Larson, John Lasseter, Stan Lee, Bill Melendez, Dale Messick, John Severin and Morrie Turner.
As many of you know who read my posts and articles, or have heard me speak, I was greatly influenced by a remarkable, painterly adventure comic artist, Gene Colan. I am saddened to announce that at age 85 he has liver failure.
Editor John Lent opened the pages of his remarkable academic journal, The International Journal of Comic Art to several essays on gallery comics grouped as a symposium. The latest issue (Fall 2007, vol. 9 no. 2) combines perspectives on gallery comics from artists, art historians, collectors and curators including essays discussing the art of Mark Staff Brandl, Andrei Molotiu, and C Hill.
Sharkforum OpEd Cartoons and Comics by Steve Hamann and Mark Staff Brandl
Steve Hamann and I will be doing an irregular series of cartoons and short comics on art for Sharkforum. They will primarily be collaborations between us, yet also individual pieces as well. All will be presented here in the future under the rubric Feeding Frenzy Funnies.
There are traditionally Nine Muses and Nine Arts, frequently linked to one another. My Latin professor Dr Clemens Müller and I have concocted a fresh, contemporary version of this system for no darn reason other than pure, arcane fun.
I recently gave the "opening speech" for a show and book signing by artist, "low-brow" queen, illustrator, comic artist, poster artist, indy rocker and all-around Wunderfrau, Tara Mc Pherson. I'm posting it here because I think her artwork is great, crosses and ignores "important" borders, and because she and her colleagues have successfully and marvelously managed to create their own supportive artworld.
Tara McPherson, who comes from Los Angeles, California, lives in New York City in the US, is a painter, poster artist, comic artist, freelance Illustrator, toy designer, book author and more. The artist also plays bass in a band and loves tattoos. In short, she is a multi-tasking, immensely creative artist straddling the line between popular art and fine art. Or better said, totally ignoring that line, which is admirable.
Artist and theorist C Hill has recently created a new term to give a clear identity to a new artistic phenomenon. The appellation is gallery comic. The second expression, iconosequentiality, is my own creation for a compositional form concomitant with gallery comics.
Recently I began reading an old book that traces the history of art criticism as a discipline, which the author starts much earlier than I would have ever imagined -– in Greek times (‘Chap. 2: Art criticism in Greece in the third century before Christ and its conditions,’ etc.). I had come across this book as I have the labor of love of sorting through (with the help of a very able assistant) the library of Joseph Randall Shapiro, which he donated to the Museum of Contemporary Art upon his death in 1996 at age 90+ (being of a heritage and era where exact birthdates were often obscure). I loved Joe Shapiro, his passion for life and art, and the obvious sustenance he drew from art. I even loved his undisguised delight in and appreciation of “the fairer sex” (which disturbed many) and felt it was a privileged view on a courtly time that was fast disappearing rather than some sort of rude affront to my gender. Joe did not disguise that he loved to lunch with “his harem,” mostly curators and other museum people — female of course — at those dreary sorts of middlebrow restaurants that sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s, i.e. The Homestead in Oak Park. Very few of these places exist today and thus can exist in some sort of rosy glow of nostalgia. In reality they were pretty awful. When invited, however, I always attended, and when I had business with Joe, as I often did, I would bring along other female MCA staffers who had not heard his repertoire of humorous stories which would slowly wind into the realm of bawdy jokes if his listener(s) seemed comfortable. Of course it wasn’t so much that he enjoyed the food at these restaurants. It was the company and conversation that he craved, and it was as much sustenance to him as the daily special. He was an esthete who could converse on the highest levels about art, yet what really tickled him was to author an advice column for the MCA staff newsletter titled “Joe Sez” (which was compiled, incidentally, into a bound volume and presented to Joe, who is often called the “father” of the Museum of Contemporary Art in appreciation for all he did).
Here's my thoroughly personal report from the conference in Boston. A bit looooong for a blog entry, but short considering all the activities at the conference.
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MS Brandl installation
(being of a heritage and era where exact birthdates were often obscure). I loved Joe Shapiro, his passion for life and art, and the obvious sustenance he drew from art. I even loved his undisguised delight in and appreciation of “the fairer sex” (which disturbed many) and felt it was a privileged view on a courtly time that was fast disappearing rather than some sort of rude affront to my gender. Joe did not disguise that he loved to lunch with “his harem,” mostly curators and other museum people — female of course — at those dreary sorts of middlebrow restaurants that sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s, i.e. The Homestead in Oak Park. Very few of these places exist today and thus can exist in some sort of rosy glow of nostalgia. In reality they were pretty awful. When invited, however, I always attended, and when I had business with Joe, as I often did, I would bring along other female MCA staffers who had not heard his repertoire of humorous stories which would slowly wind into the realm of bawdy jokes if his listener(s) seemed comfortable. Of course it wasn’t so much that he enjoyed the food at these restaurants. It was the company and conversation that he craved, and it was as much sustenance to him as the daily special. He was an esthete who could converse on the highest levels about art, yet what really tickled him was to author an advice column for the MCA staff newsletter titled “Joe Sez” (which was compiled, incidentally, into a bound volume and presented to Joe, who is often called the “father” of the Museum of Contemporary Art in appreciation for all he did).
