Scott McCloud's Blog, page 29

Understanding Parties!

Ivy throws me surprise parties once in a while. She's brilliant at engineering surprises, but it's almost wasted, because I'm pathetically easy to fool. (Imagine Ricky Jay doing card tricks for a cocker spaniel, seriously.)

Anyway, she pulled off another wonderful party Saturday, two days after my actual birthday, which was all it took to eliminate any suspicions on my part, because, well… see above. I'm dense. We had a fantastic time all the way into the wee hours.

Along with our great local p...

Important Follow-Up!

Important!:

A friend just brought to my attention that I still had an old Amazon Wishlist from 2007.

The wishlist was put up during our 50 State Tour as a way of replacing Sky's DVDs which were stolen when our car was broken into in Vancouver (don't worry Vancouver, we still love you!).

That list is not current and has been deleted!

Our fans were wonderful about helping to replace Sky's collection, but that's all history now.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't matter since hardly anyone thinks to look...

Art and the Marketplace

I read three books on the plane back from London: Jim Woodring's Weathercraft, Dan Clowes' Wilson, and James Sturm's Market Day (thanks to Gosh! and Forbidden Planet for having them in stock).

I strongly recommend the Woodring and Clowes books. Weathercraft is a perfectly-crafted hallucination from a brilliant cartoonist at the top of his game. Wilson, while uneven, has a ton of dark, funny moments, and is far more than the sum of its parts.

But of the three, Sturm's Market Day made the...

And Now I'm 50

As of a minute ago.

All the World is Sharing

So a few years ago I did an interview which wound up on the Hellboy 3-Disk DVD. The interview was pretty good (although the "examples" they showed had nothing to do with what I was saying).

Anyway, it came out, some people bought it, and from its Amazon ranking, it still sells from time to time.

But…

Like all movies, it wound up on sharing/streaming sites. Now, when I egosurf, I see references to the piece all the time, and I know they're all bootlegs because they've apparently been translated i...

"95% True"

Been reading and enjoying two very different autobiographical comics; Tracy White's memoir GN How I Made It to Eighteen and Lea Hernadez's Near-Life Experience entries at LJ.

White's book delivers literally on the title, detailing her recovery from mid-teen traumas, and how treatment helped her to not die before becoming the successful and accomplished adult she is today. And like her webcomics at traced.com, How I Made It to Eighteen is "guaranteed 95% true." She's changed names and...

Spiegelman was Right! (again)

Running late this morning, so just time for a quick one.

Paul Laroquod points to an interesting Scientific American article about the history, influence, and value of simplified line art and its relatives. Along the way, they point out a correlation between great line artists and lazy eyes.

Art Spiegelman has been saying for years that his own impaired vision in one eye probably influenced his own 2-D world of comics and art, but I doubt he ever expected science to back him up.

Mark Your Calendars — October 2, 2010

Registration is now open to host an event for 24 Hour Comics Day 2010. ComicsPro has general information here and I have more background on the phenomenon here.

Incredibly, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the first 24-hour comic, and the 7th annual 24HCD. I'm old!

Time and Again by Jacques Khouri

Here's an elegant variation on some spatial ideas that'll be familiar to regular readers (at least the theory nerds among you).

I liked it a lot. You might too.

Thanks to Rachelle for the pointer.

Nebraska Speaks

Alan Rose checks in via email with a link to his memoir comic L'il Rose of Corn, a Sunday Paper-style strip about growing up in Nebraska, complete with newsprint colors to complete the illusion that it's been printed (it hasn't—yet).

I was impressed by the confidence and craftsmanship of both writing and art on display. It has a classic feel to it; bolstered by the simple fact that Alan's stories are genuinely interesting.

In his email Alan shared a great quote attributed (perhaps wrongly) to H...