I'd Like to Thank the Academy (Weekend Pattering for May 5th, 2017)

So, that happened.

Here's hoping that we can be The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck of 2017. (If you get that reference, I bet you remember RACM and RACI too.)

Previously on Panel Patter


Cover of the Next Week



In 2015, I wrote about Noah Van Sciver's Fante Bukowski, saying "Bukowski may pridefully carry the air of confidence in himself and his writing but Van Sciver’s artwork always reminds us of just how rickety and unbalanced Bukowski’s life really is."  Now here is the sequel and I want it almost just for the cover alone.  I can't wait to see what's happening now in Bukowski's life.

Interviews


** An Interview with Jim Rugg (11 O'Clock Comics)-- Jason Wood interviews artist extraordinaire Jim Rugg about Rugg's art just as Rugg and Brian Maruca are releasing a new volume of Street Angel.
Rugg: I like so many characteristics of comics that I’m happy to have a comic book that is fun to look at, or has a character I enjoy or a storyline or tone or coloring that I like. If it all comes together, awesome. But it’s pretty awesome even if it’s just beautiful or funny or different. So there are a lot of ways a comic can fall short of perfect, but there are also lots of ways that a comic can excite me. It would be really boring if they were all the same, even if they were of a consistent high quality.

**  Sarah Glidden: the cartoonist drawn to life on the world’s frontlines (The Guardian)-- Glidden has become a favorite of ours here at Panel Patter.  The Guardian provides a profile/interview/preview of her and her work.

Does it make her happy that comics such as hers are now taken seriously, the subject of glowing reviews in Newsweek and the New York Times? “Yes and we’ve come so far even in the last five years. There are so many comics for young people now – people like Raina Telgemeier [author of the bestselling Sisters] have just exploded – which means they’re going to grow up knowing about comics in a way that my generation didn’t. But there’s still a long way to go. It’s easy to be in a bubble, to forget that most people haven’t read any serious comics, that they see the word ‘comic’ and think: oh, funny. We need a new word.” She thinks for a moment. She doesn’t write graphic novels, but even if she did, the term wouldn’t quite fit: “My mum says that sounds like something very violent. She thinks they should be called narratoons – and you know, maybe one day, they will be.”

**C2E2 2017: KIERON GILLEN TALKS HIGH FANTASY, “SELF-HATRED,” AND MUSIC SPOILING COMICS (Graphic Policy)-- I've known Logan Dalton for a couple of years now and can believe that this was a huge thrill for him, being able to interview Kieron Gillen at C2E2 a couple of weeks ago.  
Gillen: When I was writing Rue Britannia, I was influenced by Joe Matt’s The Poor Bastard, Eddie Campbell, and of course, Grant Morrison with this quasi-fiction suit sort of thing. That’s what I wanted to do with Kohl.With Rue Britannia, I hid [the autobiographical elements] less expertly than I did later. Like I gave Britannia some of the same outfits as someone I dated. It’s kind of funny when people come up cosplaying as one of my ex-girlfriends.

This and That

** Rest in peace, Tim O’Shea (Smashpages)-- Tim O'Shea was one of the great interviewers of modern comic creators.  He had been fighting brain cancer for a couple of years now and passed away on April 30th at the all-too-young age of 49.  Our condolences, thoughts, and prayers go out to his family and his friends.  The last site he wrote for, Smashpages, has a couple of remembrances about their friend and partner here and here.
An enthusiastic comic fan, Tim contributed to every incarnation of this blog over the years, starting with The Great Curve. He didn’t make the jump with us when we formed Blog@Newsarama, but eventually we were able to wrangle him into contributing. With the move to Comic Book Resources and the formation of Robot 6, Tim’s interviews became a staple of the site, as he interviewed anyone and everyone for his weekly “Talking Comics with Tim” column. And he was here when we formed Smash Pages; he was the first person I spoke with about putting something together back in 2015. He also contributed to Comics Bulletin once upon a time; you can see his interviews for that site here, his CBR/Robot 6 work here and his Smash Pages work here. He also maintained a personal blog where he interviewed folks from all over pop culture.


** I Used to Write About Comics (Gumroad)-- David Brothers, once of 4th Letter and now of Image Comics, has collected a lot of his writing into a 4-volume PDF set that you can get via Gumroad.  David is not actually asking anything for this set but you can (and should) pay a dollar or two or more through Gumroad for these collections.
These pieces range from early 2010 to mid-2013, a four-year span in which I was particularly active. They're old, in other words, and most of the headlines are bad. I've grown past some of the ideas, but some of the writing still clicks for me. If you're the type of person who likes reading comics criticism...well, here you go. I interviewed artists, taught myself how to talk about art by doing it, and had a chance to do some real navel-gazing in public.

**  A Bolland walks into a bar (The Tearoom of Despair)-- Brian Bolland drawing a Munden's Bar story by John Ostrander and Del Close.  It doesn't get much better than that.

** The top 10 butter tarts in Ontario, according to two Torontonians who are on a mission to try every one (Toronto Life)-- TCAF is coming up so Toronto Life talks to Michael DeForge and Jillian Tamaki about comics butter tarts.  Because, of course.



Your Moment of... ?


** Eisner Awards Nominations 2017 (Comic-Con.org)-- So this week, the 2017 Eisner Nominations were announced and there was some drama over some omissions (honestly, while I applaud the spirit of the Love is Love anthology, most of the work itself is syrupy at best and just embarrassing at worst,) Rob, James and I were stuck on one set of nominations.  The Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism category features a very strong field of writers and then us.

It's the cliche but it is an honor to be nominated.  It's not something I ever really thought was possible for a number of reasons.  Rob's covered the thank you's pretty well but I'd like to thank him for opening the doors of Panel Patter to James, myself, Rob Kirby, Mark Dickson, AJ, Douglas Peach, Guy Thomas and everyone else who wrote for this site before 2016 a place to be able to write from the heart and cover the stuff that we wanted to cover.

And congrats to The A.V. Club, Comic Riffs, Critical Chips and Women Write About Comics.  These are all sites and essays that I have frequently read during the past year.  Each one of them has had an influence on how I look at and write about comics this past year.

Current Mood



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Scott Cederlund

Scott Cederlund

Missing.
Presumed having a good time.
https://twitter.com/scottcederlund

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