Cartoonist Ellen Forney, "This American Life" regular Jack Hitt, and poet/soldier Brian Turner present new work on the theme "We Could Be Heroes," alongside new music by Canary Sing.
Richard Hugo House 1634 Eleventh Avenue (one block north of Pine, in Capitol Hill) $15-25 Tickets are on sale now at www.brownpapertickets.com.
FANTAGRAPHICS TO PUBLISH "TOWN OF MIRRORS: THE REASSEMBLED IMAGERY OF ROBERT POLLARD"
STUDIO DANTE HOSTS "DO THE COLLAGE" EXHIBITION DEC. 9 & 10 IN NEW YORK CITY
On the eve of his first solo visual art exhibition in New York City, Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the release in June 2008 of TOWN OF MIRRORS: THE REASSEMBLED IMAGERY OF ROBERT POLLARD, a coffee-table collection of artwork and lyrics from the celebrated front man of Dayton, OH's legendary GUIDED BY VOICES.
So, this weekend I was working a book convention in Portland. I had copies of Zippy: Walk a Mile in My Muu-Muu in tow (the new Zippy the Pinhead collection by Bill Griffith) and a woman walked by the booth on Saturday, saw Zippy out of the corner of her eye, and made a beeline for it. She declared, "I love Zippy!"
I said to her, "Me, too!" and added, "I'm glad to hear it, I always consider Zippy a good barometer of taste, because it's kind of a polarizing strip."
She looked at me without a hint of irony and said excitedly, "I KNOW!... JUST LIKE BILLY JOEL!"
Rain Taxi sponsors a reading series as a further demonstration of its commitment to literary culture.
JOE SACCO Tuesday, November 13, 7:00 pm $10 ($8 for Walker Members and Rain Taxi subscribers)
Walker Art Center 1750 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis
Join us as celebrated cartoonist JOE SACCO visits Minneapolis for a special presentation co-hosted by Rain Taxi Review of Books and the Walker Art Center. Appearing in conjunction with the Walker exhibition Brave New Worlds, Sacco will offer a visual tour of his acclaimed approach to comics journalism, in which he combines the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of graphic storytelling to explore complex, emotionally weighted situations in some of the most conflicted and war-torn regions of the globe.
Why was this story even written? This is the worst kind of wag the dog journalism about comics that I can recall reading recently, and while I'm not surprised that the NY Times ran with it, I'm a little surprised that the author's c.v. includes the Believer, which is one of the very few mags I go out of my way to read, even about things that are totally out of my wheelhouse, because I respect their editorial vigor. This story is degrading to the Times and Believer. Platinum Studios is the worst kind of intellectual property grindhouse, a shell corporation of creativity that exists for no reason other than to profit off of media manipulation exactly like this, and only proliferates for the same reason. Scott Rosenberg had as much to do with Men In Black as your average "Stan Lee presents" story from Marvel over the last 30+ years; besides, MiB was what, 15 years ago? Platinum is as creatively bankrupt as Rosenberg is morally. But because he can manipulate sales charts at EW through sheer capital investment, Rosenberg is a mover and shaker and worthy of NY Times coverage. Lazy journalists are the only reason that Platinum even exists; despite working in the comics business for nearly two decades, I've never heard Platinum's comics discussed by anyone in the industry, or even in fan circles. Rosenberg's reputation in the industry, however, precedes him, going back to his days as a comic book distributor in the 1980s. Yet Platinum keeps popping up in newspapers without really doing anything, despite a rather ignominious past for Rosenberg. And yes, sometimes the reporters solicit opposing views from folks like Gary Groth, but that's still just paying far too much attention to a creative and commercial sham. Platinum is market manipulation via huge capital, obatained through dishonesty and/or sheer luck over a decade ago.
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