Sunday News Desk- August 5th, 2018

Panel

Ramona Fradon from Metamorpho #2

Previously on Panel Patter

Cover of the Next Week


When there's a new Ben Passmore book, you can't pass it up.  Well, at least I can't pass it up.  I hadn't seen his issue of Daygloahole #2 so I immediately jumped on Silver Sprocket's website and ordered both issue #1 and #2.  And now I'm checking the mailbox every day just waiting for these to show up. 

Interviews


*** The BKBF Interview: Ed Piskor (Brooklyn Book Fest)-- If you can't get enough of Ed Piskor, here's an interview he did for the upcoming Brooklyn Book Fest.  It's short and sweet but I love it just for this story.
Tell us your best book-receiving experience. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez are two of my absolute favorite cartoonists of all time. One weekend we were sent to Memphis for a festival. I remember telling Jaime the first time I visited our mutual publisher, Fantagraphics, I had a list of things I wanted to see while at the office. One of the books on my bucket list was a self published copy of the Hernandez brosthers’ first comic, Love and Rockets. Jaime said “want a copy?” and pulled one out of his suitcase for me. I shook like a leaf.


***THE WEIRD OF WENDY PINI (Boing Boing)-- This profile/interview of Wendy Pini by Rob Beschizza covers everything from Pini's days in fandom dressing up as Red Sonja to the recent conclusion of her and her husband Richard Pini's conclusion of the decades-long Elfquest saga.  It's a good piece that covers how Pinis has been part of comics since the 1970s but for some reason, we've always looked beyond some of the oddness of their lives.  Sometimes though, I really wonder if that matters as we look at the art that these creators make.  This article draws links between the Pinis and Dave Sim and, Lord knows, I'm willing to try to forget everything I know about Dave Sim while reading Cerebus even though Sim imposes his beliefs in his comics so much more than I remember the Pinis doing.  Altogether, this is a very comprehensive look at Wendy Pini.
“One journalist decided to go after me as being an antifeminist Antichrist,” Wendy says, giggling at the memory of it. “I kept saying to her, come to the show! You’ve never seen the fucking show! Then pass judgment. But she never came. Women associated with comics, including journalists, were rare back then. If you’re a woman and you’re going to attack another woman for doing something, at least get your facts straight.”

Sonja opened doors for her, but also closed them. Paul Levitz, longtime president of DC Comics, admitted in 2014 that Wendy’s Sonja cosplay still colored the business’s perception of her success, even after she had sold millions of books.

“It limited the level of respect you received by peers”, he told her.

“That was well over 30 years ago!” Wendy replied, stunned.

“Fanboys have long memories,” he said.


*** Interview: Daniel Elkin Will Fight You Over Small Press Comics and Chicken Nuggets (Comics Bulletin)-- I really like and respect the work critic Daniel Elkin does at the fantastically named Your Chicken Enemy.

I initially started writing about small press comics around 2012 because I had discovered so many wonderful books, and I just wanted to talk about them with other people. To my dismay, I found myself having a hard time finding people with whom to have those conversations. So much around the genre is focused on superhero comics and very little bandwidth was given to these “shitty little stapled Xeroxed things” that were so intensely personal and heartfelt and beautiful. So I thought, maybe if I write about them, more people would read them, and then I could talk to people about them. I’m selfish like that.

This and That


*** Malaysia drops sedition case against political cartoonist (South China Morning Post)-- SCMP has news that sedition charges against Malaysian cartoonist Zunar have been dropped.  Zunar often drew cartoons mocking high profile politicians, such as the Malaysian ex-Prime Minister and his "luxury-loving" wife.  And he wasn't even being tried for his cartoons; he was accused of sedition due to critical Tweets of an opposition leader.

But at a hearing in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, prosecutors said the attorney general’s office had decided it does not want to pursue the case and was withdrawing the charges against him, the cartoonist confirmed.

Zunar, whose cartoons are published by leading news portal Malaysiakini, said he was happy with the decision, but would not be “absolutely happy until the government abolishes the Sedition Act”.


*** Jason Latour's Spider-Gwen Fanfiction (Latour's Twitter feed)-- Now that his and Robbi Rodriguez's run on Spider-Gwen is over, Jason Latour is either saying goodbye with one last comic or he's starting his new career as a fan-fic creator.

Your Moment of Jodorowsky



*** YOUR FIRST LOOK AT THE SONS OF EL TOPO FROM BOOM! STUDIOS (Boom Studios)-- We really don't run that may previews (if any) here at Panel Patter but I just need to sneak this one in.  Jose Ladron is one of those artists who doesn't do all that much but anytime his name is on a comic, it's work taking a look at.  I know that Jodorowsky can be a problematic storyteller at times (well, a lot of the time) but he's still a fascinating shaper of tales.
This sequel, arriving in stores December 2018, tells the story of El Topo—a bandit without limits and a man with no moral compass. But when his journey through the arid west brought him face to face with a series of rogue outcasts, he found enlightenment in the unlikeliest place and was forever transformed, becoming a holy vessel imbued with the power to perform miracles. This was a journey that took him far from his first born son, Cain, and brought about the birth of Abel.

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