New Love and Rockets books announced

As part of a celebration of Love and Rockets's 30th anniversary, Fantagraphics will be publishing the following two books. (Descriptions below taken from a message sent by Gary Groth to a comics scholars mailing list.)

Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting)

The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) contains three incredibly in-depth and candid interviews with creators Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez: one conducted by writer Neil Gaiman (Coraline); one conducted some six years into the comic’s run by longtime L&R publisher Gary Groth; and one conducted by the book’s author, spanning Gilbert’s, Jaime’s and Mario’s careers, and looking to the future of the ongoing series, with a follow-up conversation with Groth. 

This book has foldout family trees for both Gilbert’s Palomar and Jaime’s Locas storylines; unpublished art; a character glossary (which is handy, considering that Gilbert alone has created 50+ characters!); highlights from the original series’ anarchic letters columns; timelines; and the most wide-ranging Hernandez Brothers bibliography ever compiled, including album and DVD covers, posters and more. 

The obsessive-yet-accessible detail and high production values make it a must-have for comics collectors, scholars, libraries and old and new fans alike: for those new to the series, it will make jumping in seem less daunting. For longtime fans, it clears up confusion that even those devoted to the groundbreaking alternative comic over its 30-year run can experience, given the sheer amount of material and sophisticated storytelling techniques (such as flashbacks, flash forwards, elliptical narrative and magical realism).

The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar 

The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar started as a series of blog posts attempting to answer the deceptively simple question: “what makes Love and Rockets so great?” Over the next six years, it quickly grew into a meticulously researched study containing in-depth analysis of and commentary on the series. Author Marc Sobel delves into the comics’ themes, symbols and influences, as well as the Hernandez Brothers’ artistic development.

Organized into seven main chapters, one for each of the first seven Love and Rockets trade paperback collections (representing the original Love and Rockets Vol. I), the book also includes: the comics’ origins in the Hernandez Brothers’ roots, such as their involvement in the Southern California punk scene, their adventures in self-publishing, and their vital partnership with Fantagraphics; an examination of the Hernandez Brothers’ ill-fated Mister X (a science-fiction series) collaboration; a review of Mario’s solo book, Brain Capers; and a paradigm-changing analysis of Gilbert’s vastly underappreciated erotic graphic novel, Birdland. As an “extra,” The Love and Rockets Reader also includes Jaime’s very first published work: the never-before-reprinted four-page story, “Another Time, Another Place,” from 1977.

An essential resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike, this book will enlighten and deepen even the most ardent fans' appreciation of this groundbreaking series.

Art Spiegelman video interview

From the latest Angouleme Festival newsletter, here's a three-part video interview with Art Spiegelman, conducted by Jean-Luc Hees. I just noticed that you can listen to Spiegelman's answers in English via your left speaker, or to the French translation in the right one.







Also of interest: Tom Spurgeon's recent interview with Art Spiegelman over at The Comics Reporter.

Authors Coalition royalties

Found the following via Twitter and through a message posted by Kurt Busiek. The Authors Coalition of America has a list of authors and illustrators who may be owed royalties from non-U.S. sources due to what they call "foreign reprographic (or photocopying)". There are several well-known names in the list, such as:

• Sergio Aragonés
• Kyle Baker
• Robert Crumb
• Steve Ditko
• Colleen Doran
• Gary Hallgren
• Andy Kuhn
• Mike Luckovich
• Patrick McDonnell
• Mike Mignola
• Art Spiegelman

And there are even some names of deceased comics creators:

• Lee Falk
• Brant Parker (presumably the Wizard of Id artist?)
• Gil Kane
• Alex Schomburg 
• Joe Shuster
• Rick Griffin

The site has the contact info and forms that authors need to fill in order to claim their royalties. I'm not sure how the whole setup works, but there's more information in the site's FAQ:

What is the Authors Coalition of America (ACA) and why are you sending me a check?

The Authors Coalition of America is a coalition of 22 U.S. author organizations that came together in 1994 to receive and distribute foreign reprographic (or photocopying) royalties. These royalties were non-title specific (authors unknown) and distributed by collective method to our Member Organizations to be used for the benefit of authors. In 2007, the Authors Coalition began receiving title-specific reprographic royalties for visual material authors. Under agreements with Reproduction Rights Organizations (RROs), the Authors Coalition is able to distribute these royalties to individual visual materials authors for photocopy use of graphic arts, illustrations and photographs outside the United States.

The check you received is for the portion of the RRO's distribution to Authors Coalition that is designated for you by the foreign collecting country.

Did the Authors Coalition authorize use of my work?

No. The Authors Coalition does not represent authors, does not license copyrighted works and did not authorize use of your work. We function strictly as a payment agent for RROs and other foreign collecting societies wishing to distribute reprographic royalty payments to authors.

If Authors Coalition did not authorize use of my work, and I did not authorize use of my work, was my work illegally copied?

Not necessarily. With few exceptions, a foreign RRO from which payment is being made collects license fees for photocopying under special legislation in its country that permits the use of U.S. works without authorization from the U.S. rightsholder. The laws of these countries include "statutory licenses" that give users the right to photocopy material on the condition that they report that usage and pay royalties to an RRO. Although the RRO in a particular country may not have received authorization from you or your agent to license your work, it will have collected photocopy license fees with full legal authority in its own country. Fees are collected for photocopying in schools, universities, businesses, research centers and elsewhere.

Artwork stolen from Joe Giella

The following message was sent by Jim Amash to various mailing lists:


For Immediate Public Release,

A certain person Joe Giella trusted apparently stole a few pieces of original comic art from his house, mostly likely on Sept. 7 and Oct. 13 of this year. We want to get the word out so that anyone who may have already purchased this work or may be contacted about it will know it's considered stolen property, and hopefully will help get Joe's artwork back to him. A police report has been filed in the case, but spreading the word to the comics art community is absolutely vital. Here is a list of the stolen art:

Flash #144 "Menace of the Man Missile", pages 1 and 9. Pencils by Carmine Infantino.
Detective Comics #329 "Castle with Wall to Wall Danger" pages 7 and 8. Pencils by Carmine Infantino
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #107 cover. Pencils by Joe Staton.

This person is believed to have taken art from another comics art veteran, too. Anything you can do to spread the word would be very appreciated. Let's try to catch this thief.

-Jim Amash

[Artwork/bio at the top of this post taken from the National Cartoonists Society's webpage]

Lynda Barry interview on Late Night with David Letterman (video)

I was reading this much linked-to Lynda Barry profile from the New York Times, and the article mentioned that she'd been a guest half a dozen times in David Letterman's show. It turns out that one of these interviews was uploaded to YouTube less than a week ago. The interview (ostensibly to promote Barry's book The Fun House) is from 1988, when she had recently moved to New York.





The first volume of a ten-volume set reprinting Lynda Barry's work, Blabber Blabber Blabber, will be published by Drawn & Quarterly in November.

UPDATE: Mike Lynch had already posted it.

Unpublished Superman story from 1944

Looking at the original art for sale over at Heritage Comics I found the following: a complete (and previously unpublished) 12-page Superman story from 1944, "Supermite!", presumably written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster's studio. The pages can be found here.

Maybe not as exciting a find as the famous "K-Metal" story from 1940, but still an entertaining story featuring mad scientist Luthor and the classic Superman-Clark Kent-Lois Lane triangle. I don't know much about prices for original comic art, but some of the current bids seem to still be quite low. The next few weeks should let us know if these pages end up selling for a price as high as the price of Jerry Siegel's potential clone.

2011/10/28 update:  A couple of details I didn't mention yesterday: Heritage's description mentions that the story came from the collection of Jack Schiff, and also that the late Richard Morrissey had identified the writer as Jerry Siegel (which would suggest that the story has been circulating in fandom for some time).

An amazing resource: Martin O'Hearn's blog

Martin O'Hearn is a fan and historian who has been studying American comics for decades. I remember first hearing about him thanks to the late Rich Morrissey, who'd share O'Hearn's research with us over at the Grand Comics Database mailing lists, describing his capacity for identifying uncredited writers thanks to thorough and detailed examinations of their tendency to use certain words and patterns in their work, and by identifying their writing quirks in general. Several of the credits you see in the GCD today are due to Martin O'Hearn's research.

I had noticed a few months ago that he'd started posting comments in comic-related blogs, identifying uncredited writers and artists. But what I didn't know was that he'd started a blog for sharing his knowledge. He's been posting writer William Woolfolk's records, posting corrections to GCD credits, and even identifying a Jack Kirby story that has been miscredited for decades. Give his blog a look.