NCS AWARD NOMINEES

Nominees for the Reuben this year — the heavy metal trophy that accompanies the National Cartoonists Society's designation of “cartoonist of the year” — are syndicated cartoonists Dave Coverly (Speed Bump) and Dan Piraro (Bizarro), both off-beat panel cartoons, and Al Jaffee, who, born in 1921, is the oldest of the trio; he is mostly associated these days with Mad magazine, for which, since 1964, he’s done the Mad Fold-in every issue except only three or so, but before Mad, Jaffee did humorous comic book characters (Inferior Man, Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal, Squat Car Squad, not to mention Patsy Walker and Super Rabbit) and a syndicated feature called Tall Tales, a vertical pantomime cartoon (1958-65). Ron Goulart in his Encyclopedia of American Comics quotes Jaffe’s response to a question asked by one of his NCS colleagues who wanted to know Jaffee’s goal in life: “To become a vital force reshaping the social intellectual, and political destiny of mankind with a view toward bringing peace, prosperity, and a higher degree of understanding between people regardless of race, color, or creed throughout the world and elsewhere.” It was probably an election year when he said that. Jaffee’s Tall Tales is being reprinted with an introduction by Stephen Colbert; due out soon. The winner of the Reuben and of a dozen or so “division awards” (eg., newspaper comic strips, comic books, editorial cartoons, etc.) will be announced at NCS’ annual Memorial Day weekend get-together, this year in New Orleans, where the cartooners will arrive a day early to help Habitat for Humanity build houses in the desolated neighborhoods.

Nominees for the “division awards” are (“divisions” in bold face): Comic Books — Nick Abadzis (Laika), Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together), Shaun Tan (The Arrivals); Newspaper Comic Strips — Paul Gilligan (Pooch Café), Jim Meddick (Monty), Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac); Newspaper Panel Cartoons — Chad Carpenter (Tundra), Glenn and Gary McCoy (The Flying McCoys), Kieran Meehan (Meehan), a Scot who also does the comic strip A Laywer, A Doctor & A Cop; Newspaper Illustration — Drew Friedman, Sean Kelly, Ed Murawinksi; Magazine Gag Cartoons — Benita Epstein, Mort Gerberg, Glenn McCoy; Editorial Cartoons — Gary Brookins, Michael Ramirez, Bill Schorr; Greeting Cards — Gary McCoy, Glenn McCoy, Dave Mowder; Magazine Feature Illustration — Daryll Collins, John Klossner, Tom Richmond; Book Illustration — Nancy Beiman (Prepare to Board), Sandra Boyton (Blue Moo), Jay Stephens (Robots); Television Animation — Sandra Equiha and Jorge Gutierrez (“El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivers”), Stephen Silver (“Kim Possible”), Richard Webber (“Purple and Brown”); Feature Animation — Brad Bird (“Ratatouille”), Sylvain Deboissy (“Surf’s Up”), David Silverman (“The Simpsons Movie”). Nominees for Advertising Illustration haven’t yet been assembled. Nominees are ginned up by individual NCS chapters, each of which is assigned a “division,” usually a different one each year.

You may notice the prevalence of the name “McCoy” in all the foregoing. Nothing new about that: for years, these brothers have become perennial nominees in almost every newspaper cartooning genre, plus magazine gag cartooning. In addition to doing a syndicated panel cartoon together, they collaborate on a daily comic strip, and they each do editorial cartoons and magazine gag cartoons. Neither one sleeps, eats, or procreates; they just cartoon, 24/7.

Another oddity — those nominated in the Comic Book division did not, actually, produce comic books: the titles for which they are nominated are those of graphic novels — an insult to comic book creators and a slight to graphic novelists. NCS has yet to figure out “comic books.” When the Society was founded in 1946, comic book creators were deliberately kept at arm’s length because comic books were produced by gangs of creators, not single intelligences (like most comic strips and gag cartoons, the presence of gag writers and drawing assistants notwithstanding). The present confusion about comic books has its origins in that antique prejudice. NCS seems glad that graphic novels have “rescued” the comic book genre from pulp trash limbo — thereby adding luster to “cartooning” in general — but in rejoicing over this advent, the Society persists in treating the comic book like a crazy uncle in the attic instead of recognizing it for the artform that it is, a status NCS has proclaimed for virtually all other cartooning endeavors. Missing this year, by the way, is a “division” for computer animation or web comics, neither of which, I suppose, is an “artform” by the Society’s peculiar definition.

CASE DISMISSED

Neil Gaiman, called these days a “comic book legend,” was on hand during the New York Comic-Con to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which, reports Jennifer Vineyard at mtv.com, “just won a case that Gaiman has been championing for the past three years” — namely, the sordid Georgia assault on free enterprise and free speech in the person of comic book store owner Gordon Lee, who, as we all remember, was charged with “distributing harmful material to a minor.” The “material” was a comic book that depicted the first meeting of George Braque and Pablo Picasso in the latter’s studio, Picasso being, as he always was when painting, nude. Male nudity is pornographic to Georgians, it seems. But not to anyone else. Said Gaiman: “It manifestly was not pornographic any more than an encyclopedia entry featuring the Venus de Milo.”

When, after three years, Gordon Lee’s case finally came to trial last fall, a mistrial was declared due to some malfeasance of the prosecuting armada. At the time, they vowed to bring the case back again this year, but, as Gaiman was happy to announce, the case had been dismissed late Friday afternoon, April 18. “It's cost the fund $100,000," Gaiman said, "and I think it was starting to edge into the millions for the city of Atlanta,” adding that freedom of speech in comics is not treated on the same level as those rights awarded to music, prose, art and movies. "Barely a week goes by before a librarian contacts us saying, ‘They are challenging this Daredevil graphic novel. How do I keep my job and keep this on the shelves?' Comics is just this strange, bastard medium that's thought to be intended for kids, and so it falls between the cracks. If this was prose, there would be no argument, but we're fighting for creators and publishers and retailers — and now librarians — so you're free to read the stuff."

THE COMIC AND GRAPHIC NOVEL MARKET

According to an analysis conducted by ICv2 and presented at the New York Comic-Con, the U.S. retail graphic novel market reached $375 million in sales in 2007, up around 12% over 2006 sales. The periodical comic [comic book] market was $330 million in 2007, bringing the combined 2007 comic and graphic novel market to $705 million for the U.S. and Canada. Comics were up from $310 million the year before; the total was up roughly 10% from 2006 numbers. Graphic novels once again gained share of the business, increasing from a 52% to a 53% of the total. Manga sales were up only about 5%, “the lowest growth rate for manga since ICv2 began tracking sales.” Sales through bookstores were up by a mid-single digit rate, but direct market sales of manga declined 5-10%, “due to a reduced emphasis on the category by comic stores, a significant percentage of whom cut back on manga floor space in response to the growing number of releases and the increased difficulty in choosing between them.

... Another factor in the slowing manga growth rate may have been increased competition from publishers of American graphic novel material for space in stores. American ‘genre’ (superhero, science fiction, fantasy, horror) releases climbed 31% in 2007, to 1268 releases from 965 in 2006, according to the ICv2 white paper. Manga releases also climbed, to 1513 new releases in 2007, up 25% from 1208 in 2006. Over-all, there were 3,391 graphic novels released to the trade last year, according to numbers compiled by ICv2 from release lists provided by Diamond Comic Distributors, up 22% from 2006's 2,785 releases.”

COMIC STRIP WATCH

As I mentioned before, Brad, Luann’s nerdy older brother, finally asks the beauteous Toni out on a date, ostensibly to attend the fire fighters’ dance. But en route, Toni wonders what they’ll do at the dance: “I’m not much of a dancer,” she says, “ — are you?” Brad says: “No. I guess we’ll sit around, talk to other fire fighters about nozzles an’ stuff.” A strategically silent panel follows as they think this over. In the last panel, cartooner Greg Evans shows them buying tickets to drive go-karts at the local kart track. They have a great time. It’s the conclusion of another of Evans’ string of careful, compassionate and thoroughly humane story arcs. And he prepared for this punchline carefully: while contemplating what to bring Toni when he picks her up, Brad decides to appeal to Toni’s love of cars and brings her something appropriate. Evans shows similarly penetrating discernment when, as Brad leaves Toni at her door, wondering whether to kiss her goodnight, Toni solves the problem: “You should kiss me,” she says to Brad. And he does. “Well,” he exclaims afterwards, “ — that was easy.” Says Toni: “You’re saying I’m easy?” Humor and humanity, all in one daily package. We can’t ask for more.

MANGA NEWS

Kai-Ming Cha and Bridgid Alverson at PW Comics Week proclaimed the New York Comic-Con “Manga Country,” adding “San Diego may host the show with the biggest Hollywood presence, but this past weekend New York showed that it is still book country. With Random House, Hachette, Harry Abrams, HarperCollins and other trade book publishers in attendance,” they continued, “the New York Comic-Con had the feel of a publishing trade show buoyed by charged consumer exuberance of comics and pop culture fans.” But manga was The Presence: “There were big announcements by Viz Media and Del Rey; plans for a new line of color graphic novels by Tokyopop and a new content deal between Japanese publisher Square Enix and Yen Press. ... Viz Media announced a joint project with Stan Lee and Shaman King creator Takei that was launched in Japan over the weekend and will eventually hit American shores. ... [And] Tokyopop launched a new imprint, Tokyopop Graphic Novels, which will be a line of full-color graphic novels by manga-inspired creators from around the world. Publisher Mike Kiley anticipates the line will have cross-over appeal with American comics readers.”

But a small cloud has gathered on the sunny manga horizon. At a session on “Emerging Trends in Manga Retailing, panelists argued that “the trend [in comic book stores] is to carry fewer manga titles even as the number of releases steadily increases.” Said James Crocker, managing partner at Modern Myths in Northampton, Mass.: “We used to carry a whole lot of manga until chain stores started selling a lot.” Crocker and his fellow panelists, all operators of comic book stores, haven’t the shelf space to devote to the current flow of manga, and although manga apparently sell well enough in chain stores, they don’t move that well in comic book shops.

STAN LEE'S SURPRISE

According to a report by Johnathan Hardick at the Express Times, Stan Lee surprised an adoring multitude of over 600  at the New York Comic-Con with the announcement that he is returning to comics full-time as a writer and editor. He will create his first “original comic book characters” in more than 20 years for Virgin Comics. Asked what his biggest challenge might be, Lee said: “I don’t think it will be difficult at all. To me the easiest thing in the world is writing and editing. Editing is easy if I do the writing because I love what I write. I’m a big fan of me.” He’ll pick the artists he wants to work with, Lee added, saying “we have a lot of volunteers” already.

As for the new comic books/characters, he has a few ideas: “I had ten that I quickly jotted down but by the time we get to it, [it] will be complete different.” Typical Stan Lee — a flurry of notions, most of which are, doubtless, but half-formed, just the sort of antics that built the fabled House of Ideas (i.e., Marvel Comics, in case you’ve forgotten). “I had something in mind,” he went on, “but when I saw the teaser poster, it was completely different than what I had been thinking. But I find it kind of fascinating, so I may create something new based on the poster.”

Sounds exactly like the way he co-created the Marvel Universe: tossed an idea at an artist, then when the artist delivered pages that looked “completely different” than what Lee thought he’d proposed, he created something else with words to go with the pictures. We’ll all wait on tenterhooks here at the Intergalactic Rancid Raves Wurlitzer, but I very much fear that Stan Lee’s creative inspirations are still too rooted in the 1960s to work well today: today’s comics audience is much more sophisticated than even his college-age readers were then. But we’ll see. And we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

STAN LEE AT THE NY COMIC-CON

Stan Lee at the New York Comic-Con The eve of the New York Comic-Con, Thursday night, April 17, found Stan Lee, a legend in his own time as co-creator of the Marvel Universe, accepting the Con’s first New York Comics Legend Award “at an exclusive party at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square,” reported Peter Sanderson at PW Comics Week. “Befitting Lee's stature in the medium,” Sanderson continued, “it took not one but three speakers to introduce him: comics writer Peter David, Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan, and Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada.” The award is intended to honor New Yorkers who have made major contributions to the comics medium, and although Lee has long been based in Los Angeles, he was born in New York City and grew up there, and it was in New York that he did his groundbreaking work at Marvel. “Noting that Lee had co-created so many world-famous characters, Quesada kidded him by running down a list of some of Lee's lesser lights, like the Porcupine, the Living Eraser, and the monster Googam. Son of Goom. But Quesada concluded that ‘Stan's greatest creation is Stan Lee,’ the persona that he devised for himself, which Quesada compared to P.T. Barnum. ‘Thank you for being Stan Lee,’ he finished.”

Lee then arose to accept the Award and to assume the role he had invented, “Spider-Man 3" playing on videoscreens nearby. “As his fans would expect,” Sanderson said, “Lee took neither the award nor himself too seriously. ‘You want to hold that?’ he asked, passing the award to another person on the platform. In mock annoyance, he complained that Quesada had just badmouthed Googam and even the Porcupine: ‘One of my greatest creations! I'm saving him for a movie. I'll never let Quesada talk about me again.’ As for the award, ‘I think I'm very grateful for whatever that was,’ Lee told his amused audience. ‘I have to make some explanation to my wife — You traveled three thousand miles for that? Then Lee told the audience ‘Thanks a million! You've all been wonderful!’ But Lee remained a good while longer, moving through the large room, greeting the delighted fans surrounding him.”

COMIC STRIP WATCH

Comic strips are, aesthetically speaking, notably blends of words and pictures, neither of which, in the best strips, makes quite the same sense as they do together. But strips are not without purely verbal wit. In Brooke McEldowney’s 9 Chickweek Lane, Thorax, the extraterrestrial, defines Public Education as “the bureaucratic process of replacing an empty mind with a closed one.” ... And in Betty by Delainey and Rassmussen, Betty’s girlfriend complains about current slang denominating “sixty is the new fifty, square as the new round — this is the new that,” she goes on, “I’ve had it with that; the world is upside down...” To which Betty responds: “Yes, I know, topsy is the new turvy.” ... Here’s Tony Cochran’s eponymous Agnes, raving on in her usual fashion: “I never understood Superman. I mean, why would he waste all his time saving Lois? She was only one person. I mean, she must have fallen out of fifty windows! He could have been building homes for the poor! Irrigating deserts! Replanting rain forests! Superman should just have let her hit the concrete the first time.” To which her buddy says: “I’m sure Lois was grateful.” Says Agnes: “Love must make men stupid.” ... In Hilary Price’s Rhymes with Orange, we have the following discussion of Syntax: “It’s amazing how anagrams of words unlock their secret meaning. ‘Debit Card’ turns into ‘Bad Credit.’ ‘Dormitory’ turns into ‘dirty room.’ ‘Couples’ Therapy’ turns into ‘Poking each other with shrimp forks.’” “No it doesn’t,” says the auditor. “Well, it should,” says the anagramist.

THE PULITZER FOR EDITORIAL CARTOONING

The Pulitzers did it again. Almost. They considered, as one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Cartooning, a comic strip — to wit, Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean, for its sequence last fall about the death of one of the strip’s characters, Lisa Moore, from breast cancer. The Pulitzers came to their senses at the last minute, however, and awarded the $10,000 prize to one of the other two finalists, Michael Ramirez of Investor’s Business Daily, who had already, just a few weeks before, collected the Fischetti prize of $3,000; and he came in third in the Headliner Awards from the Press Club of Atlantic City, a competition won by Mike Peters of the Dayton Daily News, seconded by Mike Luckovich at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ramirez was also a runner-up in the Scripps Howard Foundation’s contest, which was won by Steve Kelley of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans; the other runner-up was Mike Lester of the Rome News-Tribune in Georgia. The other Pulitzer finalist was Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times. None of the finalists this year submitted any animated editorial cartoons of the sort that had figured prominently in the selection of last year’s winner, Walt Handelsman at Newsday.

Conservatively bent editoonists, of which there are precious few, took heart at Ramirez’s winning the Pultizer, believing him to be one of their ilk. And, indeed, so he seems, to me, to be. But Ramirez would dispute it: “An editorial cartoon is neither conservative nor liberal,” he said in accepting the Fischetti. “Whether you agree with it philosophically or not, a good editorial cartoon engages the reader in debate.” Whether we agree with Ramirez or not, no political cartoonist with a conservative reputation has won a Pulitzer since 1994, which is when Ramirez won his first Pulitzer. This year’s win was particularly sweet for Ramirez.

Ramirez, you may remember, was dismissed from the Los Angeles Times in the fall of 2005 in what was described as a cost-cutting measure. He had been the Times’ staff editorial cartoonist since 1997, when his predecessor, Paul Conrad, a three-time Pulitzer winner, retired (more-or-less — although he still produces a few cartoons a week). Ramirez began his editooning career in 1982 at the Newport Ensign in Newport Beach, leaving there in 1989 for a position with the Daily Sun Post in San Clemente, then, a year later, for Memphis and the Commercial Appeal. Moving to L.A. from the Memphis, Ramirez has been one of the most effective and hard-hitting conservative political cartoonists in the country, producing powerful visual metaphors and telling images, all copiously cross-hatched. In what is undoubtedly the finest of ironies, considering the bottom-line basis for his dismissal from the L.A. Times, Ramirez was almost immediately hired by Investor’s Business Daily, an enterprise that presumably knows how to spend money — and it chose to invest in a staff political cartoonist. Now, two years later, Ramirez is reaping awards, proving that IBD knows whereof it invests.

And a week after winning the Pulitzer, Michael Ramirez won the editorial cartooning category of the Sigma Delta Chi Professional Journalism Society awards.

EARTHY DAY IN THE FUNNIES

To commemorate Earth Day, April 22, King Features asked its cartoonists to come up with eco-awareness strips. Participants included stalwarts like Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Hagar the Horrible, The Lockhorns, and Zits, plus a clutch of the newer strips like Arctic Circle, Retail and The Pajama Diaries. "While the funny pages are about making people laugh, they have also historically been a forum for social expression," Brendan Burford, the comics editor for King Features, said in a statement. "We are proud so many of our cartoonists feel as passionately about the environment as we do."

I agree that commemorating Earth Day is a good thing, but I also think Jim Toomey went a little overboard by converting Sherman’s Lagoon on Sunday, April 20, to a form letter that readers could fill out (by drawing their favorite shark) and send off to the Director of the National Marine Fisheries Service to support saving some sharks.“Draw your favorite shark”? Maybe Toomey’s being satirical here? If so, he’s flying a little over my poor head. Or maybe he’s just giving Burford a friendly poke in the ribs.

Probably United Feature syndicate didn’t formally second the motion, but Michael Fry and T (no punctuation) Lewis at Over the Hedge devoted the entire week before Earth Day to an, er, “earthy” topic. Flatulence. Not your usual comic strip topic, and a little near the edge even in these increasingly liberated times, but definitely in the “save the earth” mode. RJ the raccoon and Hammy the squirrel filed with the IRS for a refund based upon the government giving them carbon credits for reducing methane gas emissions. As Hammy says: “The government pays us not to toot.” Says the incredulous box turtle, Vern: “Toot?” Then, off-camera, RJ and Hammy “toot.” After a week of gaseous humor, RJ issues a formal apology on Saturday: “We want to apologize for the prior week of strips, which were unduly focused on bodily function humor.” Says Vern: “It’ll never happen agin.” Then Hammy, er, “toots.” “Now, that’s not funny,” say both RJ and Vern. Hammy just giggles.

NEW YORK COMIC-CON

The New York Comic-Con, on its third outing, April 18-20, registered over 64,000 persons but managed it in much more efficient ways than last year, when thousands were left standing on the sidewalks outside, unable to gain entrance to the already packed Javits Center. PW Comics Week reports that although there were 10,000 fans lined up on Saturday morning, waiting for the exhibit hall to open, show manager Lance Fensterman said show personnel were able to get them inside in about 20 minutes once the hall opened. The International Comic-Con in San Diego should take lessons. Fensterman acknowledged overcrowding in program areas of the Center, where sometimes thousands jammed the hallways, particularly when several well-attended sessions adjourned at the same time, but “public safety officials were impressed,” he said, “with the spread of people on the [exhibit] floor and there were no concerns about safety.” Although the Con could use more rooms for panel presentations and more theater space, it will return to Javits next year, February 6-8, in virtually the same space as it occupied this year. Reconfiguring the exhibit hall, said Fensterman, will permit more exhibits, but he didn’t say what might be done with the programming.

COMIC STRIP WATCH

In Greg Evans’ Luann, her brother Brad goes on his date with Toni, and all of us incorrigible romantic nerds sigh with envy. ... In Darby Conley’s Get Fuzzy, easy-going and somewhat dim-witted Satchel says he learned how to swear by reading the comics in newspapers. “Dollar sign! Dollar sign! Asterisk! Ampersand! Squiggly!” he fulminates. “What else did you learn from the comics?” asks his owner, the hapless Rob. “Cats are evil,” says Satchel. “What else, what else? Oh, it’s 1954.” ... Barack Obama shows up, from the neck down, in Over the Hedge: RJ has recruited him to secure the release of a pit bull pup who has been arrested for stealing a semi.

HARVEYVILLE FUN TIMES

The Best of The Harveyville Fun Times (400 8.5x11-inch pages, b/w; paperback, $29.95 at lulu.com) is a sampling by Mark Arnold of his fanzine about the sundry wonders of Harvey Comics. The bulk of the content devolves around plot descriptions of stories about Richie Rich, Casper the Ghost, Little Audrey, Baby Huey, Wendy the Good Little Witch and other of the company’s confections (inspired, usually, from their animated incarnations at shops other than Harvey’s), plus a smattering of the Sad Sack — comic books, tv, movies for all the characters — but there is also a short history of Harvey Comics, probably the only aspect of this volume that is of general use as a reference tool, except, alas, that Arnold is remarkably stingy at citing precise dates. “In 1946,” he says, “Harvey Publications had its first bonafide hit with Black Cat Comics,” but couldn’t he have given the actual cover date (June) of that title’s first issue? Probably not: the book doesn’t deal much with the Black Cat or any of the newspaper strip reprint titles Harvey produced — apart from mentioning them (Terry and the Pirates, Kerry Drake, Li’l Abner, Steve Canyon, Dick Tracy and Blondie) in the Harvey history segment (which promulgates an erroneous newspaper debut date for Ham Fisher’s Joe Palooka comic strip); Arnold’s interest lies with the kiddie characters, not the material aimed at slightly older readers.

Much of the book seems to be photocopied from Arnold’s fanzine, the reproduction quality of which, judging from these copied pages, was not high. Some of the photocopies are of newspaper and magazine articles, and a few of the artists are interviewed, with brevity, apparently, as the object. Nice pieces on Fred Rhoads (Sad Sack) but nothing on Lee Elias (Black Cat). The tome is a sampling of Arnold’s fanzine, not an encyclopedia: not all the stories of every character are described or, even, listed, but the book is all there is about the Harvey Empire, so until some researcher with better archival instincts comes along, we’re stuck with this. By the way, the Harvey family under the microscope here, Alfred and his brothers Robert and Leon, is no relation of mine or of my uncles, Fred and Paul.

BILL WILLINGHAM'S FABLES

The concept of Bill Willingham’s Fables series is among the most intriguing in comics: Snow White, Prince Charming, Bigby “Big Bad” Wolf and other personages familiar from fairy tales told in nurseries around the world actually lived, and they’ve been forced by “the Adversary” to relocate, leaving their magical world for our “mundane” one, where they hide out, taking refuge in our cities but still, secretly, interacting with each other. So when I ran across 1001 Nights of Snowfall (142 7x10-inch pages in color; hardback, $19.99), I leaped at it. Herein, we find ten stories illustrated by the likes of Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Derek Kirk Kim, Tara McPherson, Jill Thompson, Charles Vess, Mark Wheatley, Esao Andrews, Mark Buckingham, and James Jean, each purporting to relate some incident in the “pre-fairy tale” life of some popular character.

We learn, for instance, that “the Runt,” who becomes Bigby, the “Big Bad” Wolf, is the son of the North Wind, hence, his huffing-and-puffing prowess. These prehistoric biographies are not warm and fuzzy like most eviscerated fairy tales these days. Here’s the occupant of the famed Gingerbread House, a witch, who tells her story: impregnated, she kills her newborn at birth, her lover having married the daughter of a rival tribe’s chieftain in order to guarantee peace between the groups. The old woman then assures her power gained by killing her baby by killing other babies, stolen for the purpose. Her exploits resonate with other tales — the Billy Goats Gruff, Rapunzel, the Frog Prince, and the like. Then Hansel and Gretel come along and push her into the oven.

Providing the allusion of the book’s title, the frame story is a variation on the old Scherazade dodge: this time, it’s Snow White who is held captive by her just acquired husband, a sultan, who is in the habit of killing his wives on the day after a one-night honeymoon; to forestall the inevitable, Snow tells stories, one a night for 1001 nights. The original Scherazade postponed her wedding’s consummation devoutly to be missed by not finishing a story in a single night: each night, she stopped at an appropriately cliff-hanging moment, so her bloodthirsty spouse had to wait until the next night to kill her. And then, before he could achieve his ghoulish goal, she’d start another tale and stop when she reached an appropriate cliffhanger. Ingenious contrivances though Willingham’s “pre-origin” tales are, they are not, somehow, wholly satisfying. Most of them lack endings that make sense of the machinations that go before; the machinations are interesting—Bigby being the son of the North Wind is an engaging notion — but our interest fades with the lackluster conclusions. The pictures by the all-star ensemble, though, are worth a look.

DBR MEDIA

DBR Media, a syndicate founded eight years ago to service weekly newspapers and small town dailies, ceased operations on March 17, reports Dave Astor at Editor & Publisher. An e-mail to DBR’s roster of over 50 cartoonists and columnists explained that the company has been “experiencing very hard times” and could no longer stay afloat, adding: “Please know that every effort is going to be made to compensate you. Money is still owed to us from clients. We are hoping to recover that.” DBR’s founders — Diane Eckert, Brad Elson, and Richard Wilson, whose first names supplied the company’s name initials — all worked for King Features Weekly Service, with which their new company would be in more-or-less direct competition. While acknowledging the common clientele both companies would pursue, Eckert, who was executive editor of DBR at its founding, felt there was room for both: with over 11,000 weekly papers in the U.S., she noted, there were "more than enough" clients" to go around. Apparently not. KFWS, launched in 1986, is still running and, at last report (March 27), had picked up 17 of DBR's client papers. At least two of the DBR creators are offering their features through georgetoon.com: Polly Keener's strip Hamster Alley and her puzzle page, Mystery Magic; and Mark Szorady's comic strip George and comic game panels Double Take, Word Pile, and George's Word Ladder. 

COMIC STRIP WATCH

Maybe Stephan Pastis of Pearls before Swine is getting some long overdue comeuppance. In The Humble Stumble, Roy Schneider has the Rat from Pearls show up to announce, in his usual mean-spirited way, that he’s heard Humble Stumble is “closing up shop.” He’s there, he says, for “dibs on your stuff.” “Suddenly,” says Schneider’s character who professed great affection for Rat two panels ago, “I don’t love you so much.” Over at Pearls, where he belongs, Rat has been serving at the concierge desk, lobbing hostile greetings to a parade of characters from other strips — the big-nose father from Baby Blues, and Ted Forth from Sally Forth (asking for the services of a female escort, in a not-so-subtle allusion to a recent high profile scandal in the New York governor’s office). Coincidentally (or, maybe not), on the same day that Ted Forth shows up at Rat’s concierge desk in Pearls, in Sally Forth, Ted is telling Sally, “Well, I spoke to the hotel concierge....” Surely, this sort of thing doesn’t happen by accident, and Sally Forth’s writer, Francesco Marciuliano, confirms my guess at his blogspot, saying Pastis and he had planned it all long ago.

ED SOREL

If, like me, you have only a nodding but appreciative acquaintance with the work of Edward Sorel, you can get to know him much better in all his sardonic brilliance with Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Worse (170 8x10-inch pages, some in color; paperback, $18.95 from Fantagraphics), a collection of Sorel’s cartoons and comic strips, culled from a his three decades of casting a jaundiced eye at American political and social life. I’ve see his cartoony paintings and penwrought illustrations on the covers of and inside such magazines as The New Yorker, Time, Rolling Stone, Esquire and The Atlantic, and while I admired his scribbly penmanship, I didn’t realize, until now, that the man is more cartoonist than illustrator: he dotes on the comic strip form because he can turn its capacity for comedic timing into a satirical weapon. Like Jules Feiffer who pioneered the method, Sorel dribbles out, panel by panel, self-revelatory bits of his monologuist’s hang-ups and preoccupations until, at last, having accumulated enough psychic evidence to condemn himself, his momentary protagonist stands psychologically naked before us, a screaming neurotic whose inability to live in the world is determined by a compulsion to analyze it. The intellectual is revealed as the incompetent.

Here’s a man seated in a chair, mulling over his political experience as “The Voter,” saying: “In ’64, I voted for Johnson because he promised peace.” Next panel: “But he betrayed me. He escalated the war!” Then in successive panels, two per administration, he continues: “In ’68, I voted for Nixon because he promised an end to Big Government. But I was fooled again. He bugged phones, opened mail, and doubled the White House staff. In ’76, I voted for Carter because he promised to cut military expenditures. But instead, he kept raising the military budget year after year! Finally, I figured it out. I realized that politicians always do the opposite of what they promise. So I voted for Reagan. But he’s doing exactly what he said he’d do,” he concludes, now a quivering blob of desperate disillusionment. While much of Sorel’s cartooning oeuvre is like this—largely verbal, the medium deployed mostly to time the divulgences — he sometimes recruits pictures to his purpose, too.

In an admirably brusque introduction, Sorel traces his career, beginning in the mid-1950s with his associations with Monocle, Ramparts, and New Yorker Magazine, continuing in 1974 with the Village Voice, for which he produced a weekly cartoon “just a page away from the man who had inspired me to do political satire, Jules Feiffer,” then children’s books and Penthouse (“the only mass magazine that allowed me to do anti-clerical cartoons”) and, for long stretches in the 1980s, The Nation, ending, finally, in 1992, at The New Yorker again. The book is organized into chapters by the victims of Sorel’s savagery: Religion, Politics, Business, Life, and then, in one disconnected lump, Writers, Actors, Editors, Artists, Shrinks, Lawyers, and other Public Malignities. For illustrative examples of Sorel’s cartoons in the book, consult the usual destination, Rants & Raves, Opus 220, www.RCHarvey.com

DARRIN BELL

Darrin Bell persists. A few weeks ago, one of his Candorville sequences observed that security at Barack Obama rallies is somewhat lax. The Washington Post, as we reported here a while back, dropped those strips without saying why. Maybe the moguls there thought that advertising the lapse in security would be tempting fate. Who knows? But Bell didn’t let it go at that. The week of March 24, Bell’s protagonist, would-be writer Lemont Brown, dreams himself back into mid-19th century America -- during Lincoln’s presidency, to be precise -- where he convinces Thomas Nast to draw cartoons that campaign for better security for the President. In a sly self-deprecating turn (in which is embedded a dig at the Washington Post), Bell makes Nast a pompous egotist who tells Lemont: “If, as you say, Lincoln is in danger, my powerful call to action will change everything.” Says Lemont: “You don’t have any self-esteem problems, do you?” Neatly done. By the end of the week, Bell had turned his satire full-bore on timid newspaper editors and publishers. Nast’s publisher refuses to print Nast’s cartoon about Lincoln’s danger, to which Nast says: “But my cartoons demanding better security for Abraham Lincoln may prevent a horrible tragedy and spare the nation 100 years of misery and hate.” Says his publisher: “Yes, yes -- but on the other hand, a dozen or so readers may take offense.” The next day, Lemont reacts: “When we produce a society where editors and readers are afraid of discussing grave issues, we deserve the absolute hell that comes to us.” Not just kiddin’ around anymore, eh?

JOHN ROSE

John Rose is one of several editorial cartoonists who also does a syndicated comic strip. In addition to doing four or five editorial cartoons every week for a newspaper chain based in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he lives, Rose also produces Kid’s Home Newspaper, a weekend activity page for children distributed by Copley News Service. And he does the legendary Snuffy Smith, a strip originated as Barney Google by Billy DeBeck in the late teens of the last century and continued, after DeBeck died in 1942, by another legend, Fred Lasswell. Rose was interviewed by John Read for the first issue of Stay ’Tooned, Read’s new quarterly magazine about cartooning. Here, I quote some from Rose’s part of that exchange.

Lasswell hired Rose as his inking assistant in 1988 because, Rose said, “he liked the way I drew big noses.” Rose worked in his Harrisonburg studio, connecting to Lasswell by fax, telephone, and e-mail and visiting Lasswell occasionally in his Florida studio. “He was the greatest cartoonist I’ve ever known,” Rose said, “and the biggest influence on my career. ‘Uncle Fred,’ as he liked to be called, was an extremely talented artist and writer, a wonderful teacher, and a great human being. His death in 2001 was a shock; I lost a mentor and a friend. And I didn’t know whether that chapter in my life was closing or if something new was going to happen. I heard nothing from King Features [about continuing the strip] for a few weeks after Fred passed away. He worked very far ahead, so Snuffy Smith was still running. Jay Kennedy, the editor-in-chief at King Features, knew that I had been assisting Fred, and called and invited me to audition, along with four other cartoonists, for the job. I was elated when Jay selected me! I never assumed the job was mine. I just felt very fortunate to be considered. It was the greatest opportunity to come my way, and I will always be very grateful to Fred, Jay Kennedy, and King Features. Working with Snuffy Smith each day is a lot of fun. I think the secret to its success, and the reason I really enjoy doing it, is the characters that Billy DeBeck and Fred created: they are just great characters to work with and fun characters to draw.”

In another article published several years ago, I read that Rose relies on gag writers for much of his comedy in the strip. And much of that comedy, in contrast to the Lasswell kind, is verbal rather than visual-verbal. Lasswell’s jokes invariably involved a picture in the punchline panel: the picture gave the words their humor. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that Uncle Fred is a legend.

For Stay ’Tooned information, visit staytoonedmagazine.com where subscriptions are offered: $40 for a 5-issue subscription.