Alec Longstreth's Blog, page 21

University of Oregon Lecture

On Wednesday I will be heading up to Eugene, Oregon to give a lecture at the the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, which is part of the University of Oregon. Below is the official description of what I am going to cover:

Creating Comics in the 21st Century - Cartoonist and Center for Cartoon Studies faculty member Alec Longstreth will talk about the many ways technology is making it easier to create and distribute comics in this modern age. Topics covered will include zines, minicomics, print-on-demand books, webcomics and eBooks. If you are interested in self-publishing, you do not want to miss this lecture!

There is currently an exhibition of Peanuts originals on display at the museum, which was curated by one of the English professors at U of O, Ben Saunders. You can see him give a brief tour of the exhibit in this video.

My lecture is scheduled from 5:30-6:30pm and then afterwards I am conducting portfolio reviews for CCS (also the next morning). If you know anyone in or around Eugene who is interested in comics, please let them know about the lecture!

Basewood en Français !

Today is the day! Basewood is finally being released in a beautiful, oversized, hardback edition... IN FRENCH! You can see some photos of the finished book "in the pulp" over on the L'employé du Moi website.

If you live in Belgium or France, the book should be available today. Or, if you live in Montréal, I guess it will be available December 10th? (Just in time for the holidays! ;)

I bought my tickets this week for my trip to Angoulême in January. I'm super excited to return to that amazing festival, to help promote the book.

Unfortunately, I don't know a simple way for people here in the USA to order a copy of the book. If I get some copies that I can distribute, I'll let you all know.

Also, I am in the process of trying to figure out a proper English edition of Basewood. I could click one button and make it available on Lulu.com tonight, like the rest of my print-on-demand collections, but Basewood represents eleven years of hard work, and I'd like the finished collection to be as nice as possible. As soon as I have it figured out, I'll post that information here!

Disney Lucasfilm Ltd.

A lot of people have been asking me what I think of Disney's recent acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd. I have been thinking about it a lot, and reading a lot of different reactions to the news. I think I'm finally ready to throw in my two cents.

Initially I was pretty surprised. When Lucas decided to make the prequels starting in 1999, I remember reading an interview where he said he would follow the same pattern as the original trilogy, meaning he would write and direct the first movie, and then open up writing and directing duties for Episodes II and III. However, as the prequel trilogy developed, Lucas decided to write and direct all three movies (with a little outside help on the screenplays). I interpreted this as a tightening of his control over Star Wars, and thought that Episode III would be the last Star Wars movie we would ever see. I imagined Lucas locking in some sort of legal agreement with the rest of Lucasfilm Ltd. so that there could never be any other movies. I assumed it would literally take 100 years until Star Wars went into the public domain for there to be new movies.

So the news that Disney planned to make Star Wars: Episode VII, VIII and IX was at first, very shocking to me. Lucas has said he will serve as a consultant for the films, and the scripts will be based on his original story treatments for VII - IX that he made back in the '80s, but he is "handing Star Wars off to a new generation of filmmakers" in all other respects (writing/designing/directing/editing/etc). Honestly, I think this is a good thing.

When Episodes I - III came out, people expected the films to change the world (and/or their lives) in the same way Episodes IV - VI had. This was unrealistic, and I think one of the reasons that I was able to genuinely enjoy the prequels is that I did not put too much pressure on them. I have said many times that I would watch a Star Wars movie even if it was just C3-PO reading from a phonebook "Antilles, Raymus... Antilles, Wedge..." I love Star Wars so much, it is a thrill for me to get any glimpse into that world. There's no doubt that Episode IV -VI are better films, but I still had a blast learning the back stories of all the characters and getting to see the Jedi in their prime, and their eventual fall. I think we must now consider Episode I - VI to be the Star Wars "canon" because they were all created under the watchful eye of George Lucas. I'll still watch and enjoy everything that comes out from now on, but it will never be quite the same.

It's not necessarily going to be easy... My knee-jerk reaction to the announcement that Michael Arndt is going to write Episode VII was "WHO THE HELL IS MICHAEL ARNDT, AND WHERE DOES HE GET OFF THINKING THAT HE'S GOOD ENOUGH TO TOUCH STAR WARS??!?!" But after some deep breathing, I thought, "Who the hell was Lawrence Kasdan when he wrote Empire Strikes Back?" He wasn't the greatest writer of all time. He had written a few good movies, the same as Arndt, and Empire and Jedi turned out great. I think this is going to be a process of letting go. They are just movies, they are supposed to be entertaining and fun. And I have no doubt that these sequels will be just that.

There are two sides to Disney, and in this deal I think we are seeing the better half. If the acquisition of Pixar is any indication, Disney will be hands off and let the talented people at LucasFilm, Skywalker Sound and ILM continue to do their excellent work (except perhaps the animated feature department at ILM, who won the Academy Award for Rango - it seems like Disney will not want a third animation department to contend with). They are going to throw a lot of money at these new sequels, and I'm sure the production values, special effects and everything will be top-notch. I thoroughly enjoyed the new Muppets movie that Disney released last year, and in that case they took a much beloved series and hired young, talented creators who were respectful of the source material and they turned it into something new and great.

The dark side of Disney, as I see it, is their lack of respect for classics that should be left alone (ie "Bambi 2" ad infinitum). It would be horrible and insulting if they decided to RELAUNCH Star Wars, the same way they have with so many of the Marvel properties. But honestly, I think there is less of a risk of that happening with Star Wars. There's not much there with The Hulk... there are only a few characters, only one origin story. But Star Wars is a whole universe! In the official press release, Disney states that there are over 17,000 characters in the Star Wars universe, and 20,000 years of continuity to work with. For me, it's exciting to think that there could be high-quality movies, TV shows, etc. exploring some of that universe. After all, Star Wars was originally based on old movie serials, so in some ways it seems appropriate that there will be a lot more installments.

I saw Skyfall last weekend, and was surprised to see the "50 Years" announcement at the end of the film. Bond movies are pretty formulaic, but I usually have a great time watching them, and I never go in expecting to have my life changed. Star Wars is already going on 35, and there is definitely enough creative material there to get through at least another 15 years!

Right now the main questions I have are about continuity. When will Episode VII take place? Will it take into account the Heir to the Empire continuity that Timothy Zahn established? Or just ignore it and start afresh? I'm hoping that they are smart enough to get far enough into the future so that they don't have to recast Luke, Leia, Han (which would be a disaster, in my opinion). A jump forwards to focus on the next generation of Jedi seems to make the most sense to me. Plus, you might be able to have a fun cameo by one or more of the original cast. It's also fun to think about the other movies that LucasFilm owns, that could now be expanded (Indiana Jones, Willow, Howard the Duck...)

The other side of this that I'm really interested in is what George Lucas has planned next. I've seen some reactions saying that he has "sold out" with this deal, which is hilarious to me. Lucas was always a shrewd business man, and he turned one movie into a multimedia empire by selling toys, cereal, clothes, books and anything else he could slap a Star Wars logo on. For me, the craziest line in the press release is "Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas." I later saw him referred to as "the world's richest artist." I'm sure he will do some interesting things with his four billion dollars. And I hope he'll finally get around to the "small documentary films" that he has talked about making for so many years, now that Star Wars will not be taking up so much of his time and energy.

For those of you who are wondering, there was a hot minute, when I first heard the news, where I thought "I could still work on Star Wars!" But like Lucas, I now want to focus on my own creative projects. It's time to stop taking Star Wars so seriously, and just enjoy it as entertainment.

Pacific Northwest bound!

One of the main reasons that Claire and I moved back to the west coast was to be closer to family. Well, I will be taking advantage of my closer proximity this weekend!

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Seattle to see my family for a few days, and then on Saturday, November 3rd I will be at the Short Run small press event. I will, of course, be joined by my stalwart tabling companion, Tugboat Press.

After the show, Greg and I are going to drive down to Portland, where I have a packed schedule. Sunday night I'm meeting up with some of the guys from the Crazy Flipper Fingers pinball gang, to do some research for the next issue of Drop Target, and then Monday night I will be giving a talk to the Comics Certificate class at the Independent Publishing Resource Center.

The talk will not be open to the public, but at 8pm there will be a public screening of the Cartoon College documentary about CCS (which I am in!). I am going to introduce the film and perhaps do a Q&A session afterwards, if anyone has any questions. If you haven't seen the movie, it's a lot of fun, so I hope you'll join us! I'm very excited to see the IPRC's new space.

Look out, Pacific Northwest, here I come!

The Parade of Visitors Marches On!

Claire and I have had a lot of visitors and houseguests ever since we arrived in Oakland - her brother Natch, my sister Courtney, plus Greg has visited twice for San Francisco comics events. This trend continued once again this weekend! Last weekend while I was tabling at APE in San Francisco, my best friend Gabe was down in San Jose playing in a Magic tournament.

On Wednesday night he rolled through Oakland and I got to hang out with him for a few days. It was good to see him! We played a lot of pinball (or as much as possible, with his recently injured hand) did a few repairs on the machine, came up with a Dvorak layout for iOS devices, and also had a massive story meeting for a top-secret Phase 7 project that is a ways down the line.

Then, on Friday night my parents came to town for about 48 hours. We showed them around our neighborhood, and hung out for a bit before they headed back to Seattle last night. Claire's Mom and Step-Father are visiting this weekend, so the fun never stops!

Phase 7 at APE 2012!

The Alternative Press Expo is this weekend (October 13th and 14th) in San Francisco. I will be at table #631 along with the inimitable Tugboat Press and Claire's Fluff Engine patterns and stuffed animals.

I'm also signed up to spend a few hours behind the Center for Cartoon Studies table (#530), so swing on by and I will talk your ear off about how cool CCS is.

On Sunday I will also be participating in a panel discussion about the Bay Area comics scene. Here's the description from the website:

4:45pm Bay Area Comics: Past, Present, and Future—Thien Pham (Level Up, Sumo), Jason Shiga (Meanwhile, Empire State), Andrew Farago (Cartoon Art Museum), and other past and present cartoonists from the Bay Area discuss one of the world's most dynamic and important comics scenes. Whether you're a lifelong San Francisco resident, a new arrival, or just visiting, this panel promises to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about comics by the Bay.

There will obviously be all kinds of other awesome stuff at this show, so if you are into minicomics or zines and you live in the Bay Area, please come check it out!

33

I turned 33 yesterday. It has been a pleasant birthday week. On Monday and Tuesday it was in the '90s (I guess an Indian Summer is pretty common in Oakland this time of year) so Claire and I decided to use the pool that is in our apartment building's courtyard for the first time. It is unheated, so it felt very cool and refreshing. I can't imagine that we will be using it again any time soon, but it was fun, and felt very "California."

I got some great reference books for my birthday including Mill by David Macaulay and some of the Motion books by Muybridge. I've been spending my "creative hour" in the morning lately doing character designs and world building for Isle of Elsi and these will be a big help.

Sadly, I'm beginning to realize that it is going to be some time before I will be able to launch that webcomic (maybe another year?) I need to finish some other projects that I am currently working on, so that I can free up some time to work on IOE. Once it starts, I want to work on it for a really, really long time, so I just want to make sure I'm ready for that commitment. I'd hate to start it prematurely and then have a weird start-and-stop schedule at the very beginning. I want to draw a BIG buffer (maybe the whole first 100-page story?) so that I can work on new stories without too much pressure.

Currently I'm hard at work on Phase 7 #017 (part one of my "Weezer Fan" trilogy) which is easily the most fun I've had making comics in years. Throw in some Walker Bean 2 coloring, my weekly class at CCS and some assorted freelance illustration projects, and I am a very busy guy. But everything I'm working on is fun and fulfilling, so I count myself very lucky. I just hope I can spend the next 33 years working on similar projects!

Graphicly! iBookstore! Kindle! Facebook!

Last spring, during my blogging hiatus, I set up an account on Graphicly.com to create new eBook versions of my Phase 7 collections. I have wanted to blog about this for a while, but I've been so busy the last few months, I haven't had a chance, until now.

Basically, this means that Phase 7 #001-#004 and Transition are both available for $1.99 from some popular eBook vendors:

Phase 7 #001-#004: Apple iBookstore / Amazon Kindle / Graphicly.com
Transition: Apple iBookstore / Amazon Kindle / Graphicly.com

Graphicly is working to expand into more venues (Nook, Kobo, etc.) so hopefully people will be able to check out this work on any device that they are using to read eBooks. I'm hoping to make the next Phase 7 collection (#012 - #016) available as an eBook and as a print-on-demand collection by the end of the year.

Some of you might remember that I put some eBooks on Lulu.com last year. I'm still leaving some stuff up there (because it's cheaper), but for my main books, I'm going to be using Graphicly.com to get them into the digital hands of the major vendors.

One weird side effect of all this was that I had to set up a Facebook account to sign up for Graphicly. Thankfully, I was able to set up a "professional" account, which meant that I did not have to set up another personal account. Anyway, if you are using Facebook and you would like to keep up to date with my publishing schedule and convention dates, or if you have ever wanted to "like" Phase Seven Comics on Facebook, now is the time.

Out of the Pan and Into the Fire!

Well, SPX was absolutely amazing this year. It's always my favorite show, but this year it went above and beyond my already high expectations. The floor was 50% bigger this year, but with only 20% more tables, so it was easier for people to walk around and it was very comfortable behind the tables as well. Tons and tons and TONS of people came out for the show, thanks to the stellar line-up of special guests, and everybody sold lots of comics. Hooray for SPX!

Please note that my past three weekends have involved: 1) The San Francisco Zine Fest 2) Zozobra and 3) SPX. This has meant a lot of traveling, and honestly, I would love to just take it easy this weekend... but no such luck!

See, I found out last week that the 6th annual Pacific Pinball Expo is this weekend up in San Rafael (just on the other side of the bay!).

So tomorrow I'm waking up bright and early to go help set up the show, then I will be there all weekend long, selling copies of Drop Target Zine at the Stern Pinball / Marco Specialties booth, and then on Monday I'm going to help break everything down. I'm also going to do my best to catch some of the amazing programming and to play as many of the 400+ games as I can. This will be my first pinball convention, so any way you slice it, I'll get some good material for the next issue of Drop Target Zine, which has a theme of "Community."

So if you're into pinball, maybe I'll see you there!

I will be at SPX too!

Okay, as promised, here is my amazing blog post all about how I'm going to be at SPX this weekend (September 15th and 16th) in Bethesda, Maryland!

I will be tabling at table J1 and J2 with Tugboat Press, MK Reed and Joel Gill. I will have a few Basewood Box Sets for sale for $15 (which is four bucks cheaper than buying all the issues individually!) I'll also have all four issues of Drop Target Zine, a few copies of the good old Dvorak Zine and a couple of my old Phase 7 collections.

But that's not all! I will also be participating in two of the wonderful programs that SPX offers all weekend long.

On Saturday at 4:00 pm I will be in the White Flint Auditorium along with Robyn Chapman and Tom Hart to teach the CCS / SAW Cartooning Workshop. We are going to talk about character design and it should be pretty fun!

Then, at 5:30pm on Saturday, in the White Oak Room, there will be a screening of the Cartoon College documentary. It is a 75 minute film all about The Center for Cartoon Studies. I am in this movie quite a bit, so after the screening I will be answering questions along with the inimitable Jen Vaughn, who is the real star of the film. This will wrap up around 7pm.

That's about it! SPX is always my favorite show of the year, so I'm excited to see a bunch my comics friends, and I would love to see some of you out there too, Dear Readers!