Where in the World Are My Drawings?

The six of you who've followed my blog a while may remember me mentioning in January that the Norman Rockwell Museum, which borrowed eight pages of original art from Mom's Cancer for its "LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel" exhibition, hoped to loan the show to other museums after it closed. The Rockwell curators tell me it's unusual for an exhibition of theirs to travel, but this one drew a lot of interest and was a real success for them.

Now I've received a letter with some details, including word that, if I agree to extend my loan (I will), I won't see my pages again until 2011. That makes me a little wistful. I'll miss them. However, as I told the Rockwell folks when I attended the exhibition's opening, they're better off hanging on their walls than sitting in a file folder under my desk.

Right now, museums interested in the show include the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, West Virginia; and the James A. Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. I don't have any dates yet, and am told that other venues may be added to the list.

Notwithstanding my own contribution, this is a terrific show with amazing art I'd encourage you to see if you get the chance. I have no idea which works will comprise the traveling exhibition, but at the Rockwell Museum it included original art by Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Howard Cruse, Steve Ditko, Milt Gross, Peter Kuper, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Dave Sim, Art Spiegelman, and many more. All together, it made up a real nice cross section of comic history and art.

I can't express enough what an honor and thrill it's been to have my drawings hanging in a museum. It's other-worldly. And I couldn't have greater respect for or confidence in the Rockwell staff that will be handling the travel arrangements and babysitting my pages for the next few years. They are a first-class group of professionals. Also, very nice. A lot of other people I would've said "no" to.
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At the Rockwell opening last November.
That's about as good as I clean up.

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MoCCA Exhibit Extended

Forgot to mention.... I got an e-mail a few days ago from Jennifer Babcock, curator for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in New York City, asking if she could hold onto my Mom's Cancer originals a little longer. Their exhibit, "Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics," was supposed to wrap up more than a week ago, but now they'd like to extend its run through March. I guess it's going well.

Flattered, I replied "Hell, no!"

Aw, not really. As I remarked while dining with the folks from the Norman Rockwell Museum, my stuff looks a lot better hanging on their walls than sitting in an accordian folder beside my desk.

I'd still love to hear from anyone who's seen the MoCCA exhibit, since I'm not planning to get to New York in the next couple of months. It sounds like a great show for any comics fan.

Rockwell Interview

Back in August I blogged about recording a video interview to go along with the "LitGraphic: Art of the Graphic Novel" exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum, which is currently showing eight pages of original art from Mom's Cancer along with scores of more interesting works from better artists. As I mentioned in my report from the exhibit opening, the museum is playing these interviews of me and several others in a continuous loop on two monitors near the galleries.

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Anyway, museum curator Martin Mahoney--who flew to my home with Jeremy Clowe to tape the interview--just sent me a copy of the DVD and gave me permission to post my piece of it. Here it is, courtesy and copyright of the Norman Rockwell Museum:

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Subjectively, I think I'm hideous. (My wife: "No, really, that's how you actually look and sound." Me: "Good lord, why did you ever marry me?!") Objectively, I think it's a nice piece of interviewing with terrific production values.

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Backstage trivia: the rolltop desk I'm sitting at is where I actually do most of my artwork. My Eisner Award is on the desk beside me but I don't normally keep it there; the guys wanted it in the shot. The two plaster masks on the wall behind me are the Greek gods Hermes and Apollo, made by my children in art class several years ago. The big poster on the wall at upper left is an uncut sheet of 16 pages of Mom's Cancer as they rolled off the press, which I think is really cool. Mom made the stained-glass shade for the desk lamp behind me. And the outdoor footage near the end is my backyard, where I never actually sit around sketching but which I think looked particularly green and flowery that day.

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"LitGraphic" will be on exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. through May 26, and after that could be coming to a museum near you. I think it's worth a visit.

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Jeremy and Martin: the view
from MY side of the camera

In Which My Drawings Lead a More Exciting Life than I Do

A few days ago, I received a very nice letter from the Norman Rockwell Museum asking if they could hold onto the eight pages of Mom's Cancer artwork they're exhibiting a bit longer than planned.

Curator Stephanie Plunkett wrote that the show, "LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel," has been a big success--enough so that after it closes in May, they'd like to make it a traveling exhibition and loan it to other museums. Not every exhibition is so honored; apparently they've already gotten a lot of interest from big-time institutions.

Since Stephanie bribed me by enclosing a great book full of Rockwellian arty goodness, I said "yes."

If all goes as planned, I won't be reunited with my artwork until June 2010--unless I go visit it, and even then they probably won't let me take it out of the frame and mess around with it ("it's all right, I'm just fixing a little mistake...."). My drawings will visit parts of the country I've never seen. I'll be an old man by the time they come home. Still, as I mentioned to my wife, I guess if I miss them that much I can always redraw them.

So look for LitGraphic, coming soon to a museum near you (tour details will follow as I learn them). If you see my stuff, say "Hi" for me.
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Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens

This seems like the right time to remember people whose work--and, when I was lucky, friendship--made my life better in 2007:

My friend Mike Lynch, successful magazine cartoonist and fellow Trekkie, whose impromptu calls I'm always delighted to take and whose blog is terrific.

My friend Patricia Storms, whose cartooning and illustrating career really seems to have taken off lately, and it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

My friend Jeff Kinney, whose career as a best-selling author I can actually claim to have witnessed the very start of. It also couldn't happen to a nicer person.

My friend Paul Giambarba, a cartoonist, artist, illustrator, author, art director and much more, with a multi-decade career I can only envy.

My friend Otis Frampton, writer, artist, and creator of Oddly Normal among other great work.

My friend Arnold Wagner, who made my life better until the evening of August 31.

My friend Ronniecat, who started a blog when she suddenly lost her hearing at age 39 and soon branched out to write about anything else that interested her.

My friend Mike Peterson, a career journalist and newspaper editor in Maine, and a cartooning connoisseur.

My friend Sherwood Harrington, an astronomer, traveler, and better writer than he lets on.

My friend and editor Charlie Kochman, who grasps ideas immediately, figures out ways to make them better, and would never do anything to disappoint me in any way ever.

Writer, comics creator, and Hollywood insider Mark Evanier, whose blog is a daily stop of mine.

Annie and Jazz Age cartoonist Ted Slampyak, likewise a regular surfing destination.

Between Friends cartoonist Sandra Bell-Lundy, likewise likewise.

Agreeably cranky writer and artist Eddie Campbell, who made my week a couple of months ago.

The many artists, writers, comics and cartooning professionals I've gotten to know online, plus a few I've gotten to know in person, including Guy Gilchrist, Stephan Pastis, Michael Jantze and Terry Moore. Thanks for your time.

Annette Street, Professor of Cancer and Palliative Care Studies, La Trobe University, Australia.

My neighbor Larry, who I just discovered reads my blog. Thanks for helping me fish my eyeglass lens out of the storm drain that time, plus for protecting our country. That was good, too.

Martin Mahoney, Jeremy Clowe, and the staff of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Jennifer Babcock and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in New York City.

People who voted for me in the Eisner Awards in vain.

People who voted for me in the Harvey Awards--not in vain.

Wolfgang Fuchs, who translated my book into German, accepted an award on our behalf, and exchanged some very nice notes with me about it.

Germany.

People who read my book, and maybe even paid money for it. I don't ever, ever take that for granted. Thank you.

People who read my book and then wrote to tell me about it, themselves, their families, and their stories. Thank you especially.

Everyone else I don't want to embarrass by naming in public but who know who they are.

My wife Karen, who didn't think the preceding sentence applied to her.

My girls, who make me proud.

A happy new year to us all!


*I reserve the right to wake up in the middle of the night, slap myself on the forehead crying "How could I have forgotten them?!" and add names to this post at any time. If that's you, I apologize.
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Two Newspaper Stories

Tim Kane of the Albany Times Union in Albany, N.Y., wrote a nice piece on the "LitGraphic" exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum, of which several original pages of Mom's Cancer are the least interesting part. The article quotes curator Martin Mahoney (hey, I know him!) and provides a nice historical perspective on graphic novels/comics, tracing them from their 19th-century roots through the underground sixties, Will Eisner, R. Crumb, and the modern move into mainstream films such as Sin City, 300, and V for Vendetta. An excerpt:

Adjacent to the permanent collection of traditional Rockwell illustrations, the bold irreverence and iconoclastic spirit of "LitGraphic" is only magnified. they can be dark and political or mystical and outright humorous; a number of artists have used the form for bracing works of social commentary.... Nothing is out of bounds: Sexual orientation, racism, feminism, fascism, violence, war, famine and health care fuel intricate narratives and stirring graphics.

Guess I'm the "health care."

For yesterday's New York Times, Motoko Rich wrote an interesting story titled "Crossover Dreams: Turning Free Web Work into Real Book Sales," which looks at exactly that. The article features the best-selling children's book Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (hey, I know him!), quotes Abrams editor Charlie Kochman (hey, I know him!), and cites the recent publication of Shooting War, a new webcomic-to-book success story, by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman (hey, never met 'em!).

I'm not mentioned. Charlie said he told Ms. Rich all about Mom's Cancer and its status as the first webcomic to cross over to mainstream publishing (we think; if anyone has a counter-example, let me know, I'm happy to give credit where due). She didn't take the bait and that's cool. I've been a newspaper reporter and know you can only cram so much into a story, especially a little 1200-word feature. No harm no foul.

Nevertheless, the article touches on a topic of great interest to me: the decision to publish stuff in book form that readers can already get free online. The article offers two examples of different approaches and I offer a third.

Wimpy Kid was first posted to the Website funbrain.com and is in fact still there--all 1300 pages of it. For the book and its sequels, Jeff and Charlie are breaking it up into 200-page bites and, I think, doing significant rewriting and editing. Still, if someone wanted, they could read the entire Wimpy Kid saga right now. And yet the print version has spent 33 weeks on the NYT best-seller list. What's up with that? The article quotes Abrams CEO Michael Jacobs (hey, I've met him! and that's the last of those, I promise): "I think books are still things, thank goodness, that people want to own. The package of the book and the way it feels is something apart and separate from being able to read it online." I think that's right and at least part of the answer.

The authors of Shooting War used the Web as a tease, posting the first 11 chapters in a Web magazine while hoping and intending them to lead to a book deal. They rewrote some parts, added 110 pages, and ended up with a book very different from the introduction that's still available online. That strategy worked for them.

I serialized Mom's Cancer online because I didn't know what else to do with it. I never thought of it as a webcomic per se, but as a comic that happened to end up on the Web. It would be disingenuous to claim I wasn't thinking about print; in fact, I hoped it might become a book from the start. I just had no idea how to do that, and in the meantime I wanted to get my story out.

I stumbled into a good synergy. The many people who read it free online caught the attention of the Eisner Award folks, which probably would have opened some publishing doors regardless. However, in fact, the Eisner nomination hadn't yet happened and Editor Charlie wasn't aware of the webcomic when he accepted my proposal. Still, the fact that I could say "Umpity-thousand people have read this story in the past few months and my readership continues to grow" helped Charlie and me make our case to the publishing-house bean-counters that printing my story was a risk worth taking.

He Who Steals My IP Steals What Exactly...?
So why did I take it offline? One reason is that my publisher Abrams requested--not demanded, but requested--that I do. But I'll step up and say I honestly had no qualms about doing it. The way I looked at it, my publisher and I were entering a business partnership to publish and sell a book. It was in our common interest to make the best book possible and sell as many of them as we could. My partner was making a big financial investment and shouldering considerable risk; my personal risk was negligible. Worst case, if we didn't sell a single book, I wouldn't lose a dime. So it seemed to me the very least I could do to minimize my partner's disproportionate risk was not offer a directly competing product--my Web version--free of charge. I thought it was the professional and right thing to do. One of my proudest days as a writer was when my editor told me the book had broken even. That's when I felt I'd fulfilled my obligation.

I also think an important difference between Mom's Cancer and Wimpy Kid is simply length. My story is about 110 pages, Jeff's is 1300. You can read mine in one sitting; Jeff's takes a few days. Reading Wimpy Kid on a monitor is a significantly different experience than reading it as a paperback in bed or on the playground; mine less so. I don't know where to draw the line--200 pages? 600?--but given Wimpy Kid's size and audience, it seems to me that the risk of free competition is much smaller with Jeff's book than mine.

So I took it offline. Some people were disappointed. If anyone wrote and said, "I'm going through the same thing right now and would really like to read it," I gave them access to the Web version, especially before the book was published. Very rarely, if someone writes from a country where the book is otherwise unavailable, I still do. Otherwise, I've got no problem asking potential readers to pay $12.95 for my book. My mother's Afterword alone is worth at least $12.94.

The reaction that surprised me, and I still don't understand, was hostility. A small number of people seemed really angry, and not because they cared so passionately about my work. I think they're consumers used to getting their reading free, their music free, their games and entertainment free, and they somehow assume a profound philosophical right to get everything they want for nothing. Their rallying cry is "Information Should Be Free!" and they seem deeply offended by being asked to pay money for content or respect a creator's right to control what happens to their own work.

But...in an Information Age society--and in a country that doesn't forge steel, sew clothing, or build cars anymore--what do we produce of real value except the creative output of our minds? Indeed, why shouldn't good, creative ideas be the very things we treasure and protect the most? They're certainly rare enough. Honestly, my story is worth $12.95. It contains at least $12.95 worth of writing, drawing and ideas. I think it's worth a movie ticket and box of popcorn. If you don't, don't buy it. But don't tell me my work has no value and I have some social or moral obligation to let you take it and do what you want with it. Nope. My stuff's better than that.

And hey, you know what? If I make a few bucks and my publisher makes a few bucks, maybe we can do something else again. But neither of us can afford to do it for nothing.

Writer Harlan Ellison has had a reputation for offering strong, loud, controversial opinions on professionalism and creators' rights for about 40 years. The interview below was taken from an upcoming documentary about Ellison and captures some good thoughts much more passionately and (fair warning) profanely than I could. It's a worthwhile 3 minutes and 25 seconds. Although I have to admit I hope I'm never on the other end of a Harlan Ellison phone call.


(Note: there's no irony in my posting a free video clip from a commercial film on a free blog. This clip was released by the film's producers with, I presume, Ellison's OK.)

The Trip Report

The Mighty Housatonic
(I hope to someday learn how to pronounce that)

One of the nice things about travel is it makes you appreciate home. My wife and I are happy to be back, although I return to face a mountain of work that has to get done before Thanksgiving. You may judge how eager I am to tackle the mountain by the length of this post. Let's see how well I can procrastinate.

Elaborating on my previous post's highlights:

1. Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Berkshires. Beautiful country, perfect little villages full of nice people. If there is a single home in the entire region that doesn't look like it belongs in a painting by Grandma Moses, Currier & Ives, or Norman Rockwell, we didn't see it. Ordinary houses well off the beaten path have all the clapboard, dormers, gables, cupolas, cornices, finials, and flying buttresses you could hope for (maybe not flying buttresses). Beautiful brick construction of the type we simply never see in northern California because ours all fell down in 1906. We're pretty sure everyone keeps their one-horse sleighs locked up in their garages until the first snow falls, because that was the only detail missing.

We met several locals who were almost apologetic about the state of their trees' leaves. Leaf tourism is a big deal, and we were alternately told that we'd missed the best colors by a few weeks, that we'd see better color a little farther north, or that the colors were bad everywhere this year. As we explained to a few folks: we're from California. Our standards for fall leaf color are pretty low. However, I don't see anything wrong with vistas like these:

2. Opening of the LitGraphic Exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum. What a beautiful facility. I only realized as we drove to it that the reception was scheduled to begin after sunset, and it was pitch dark by the time we arrived at 5:45 p.m. So of the building exteriors and surrounding landscape, I can only say that the photos I've seen look very nice.

The interior, I can report first-hand, is terrific. Galleries are arrayed around a small central rotunda featuring Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" paintings. Many of Rockwell's huge, stunning originals are on display, in some cases accompanied by the sketches or studies he used in their creation. It's not an enormous place; I'd call it appropriately intimate, in an architectural style that seems to reflect a Rockwell aesthetic without calling attention to itself at the expense of the artwork.

The LitGraphic exhibit occupies three galleries in the back, with one dedicated to "historical" work by artists such as Eisner and Kurtzman, and the other two to more contemporary pieces. A tiny side gallery--almost a corridor--has benches facing two TV monitors that looped five-minute interviews with six of the exhibit's contributors, including me.

Me and my wall.

Watching myself on TV.
Because I'm just that vain.

It's hard to estimate how many people attended the opening reception. More than 100 for sure. Several were museum patrons and members, though the museum staff told me there were many new faces they didn't recognize--presumably people just drawn by the subject matter--and they were thrilled with the turnout. The first person we recognized shortly after we arrived was curator Martin Mahoney, who came to my home to interview me. I also reconnected with Jeremy Clowe, who ran the camera and did a fantastic job editing all the interviews into a great presentation. He worked very hard to find five minutes that did not make me look stupid. We also enjoyed meeting their friends and loved ones as well.

3. Meeting Artists. Dave Sim, Peter Kuper, Howard Cruse, Marc Hempel, and Mark Wheatley all had work in the exhibit and attended the opening. I spent a few minutes and had good conversations with each, during which we said nice things about each other. Dave was great, and Peter and I turned out to have a mutual friend in Editor Charlie (not as big a coincidence as it may seem; Charlie knows everybody). Even artists much cooler, better, and more experienced than I admitted that showing their work in the Norman Rockwell Museum was something of a career highlight, which made me feel a bit less like a freshman at the senior prom.

With "Cerebus" creator Dave Sim.

4. Terry and Robyn Moore. I mention Terry Moore of "Strangers in Paradise" separately because we had a little more time to talk and, maybe, connected in a less superficial way than usual at an event like this. We really had a good visit about writing, the creative process, family, all sorts of stuff. As I wrote in my last post, Terry and Robyn seem like especially nice people I look forward to seeing again whenever I can.

Terry (center) and I chatting with a museum patron who was very proud of the comic-themed tie he'd worn for the occasion.

Dinner following the reception was held at the palatial (literally) Cranwell Resort in nearby Lenox, where I got to know more of the museum's staff, curators and administrators. I was impressed by how excited they seemed to be about hosting the exhibit. They talked about the emergence of a new narrative form and the continuum of telling stories with pictures that linked Norman Rockwell to us. Good food and better company. It was after 11 when we finally parted.

5. Guy Gilchrist. Guy began his professional cartooning career at age 14. Mentored by "Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker and often working with his brother Brad, he's had an impressive career that's included "The Muppets" and "Nancy" comic strips as well as many books and commercial art projects. Now he works out of Guy Gilchrist's Cartoonist's Academy in Simsbury, Connecticut, which serves as his studio, a school, and a summer day camp for kids.

The first impression any fan of comics and cartoons would have when entering Guy's academy is jaw-dropping wonder. The walls are covered with original art, some by Guy but most by other great pros: Milt Caniff, Stan Drake, Curt Swan, Cliff Sterrett, Jack Davis, too many others to count or recount. As I told Guy, I think young cartoonists can learn more from looking at original artwork for 10 minutes than they can from a shelf full of books, so he's done them a tremendous service right there. The academy is also outfitted with desks, art supplies, light boxes, and computers for the students to make their own comics and flash animations. It's quite an undertaking.

Guy very graciously treated us to lunch and spent about two hours of his day off with us. He's known a lot of the old-guard East Coast cartooning elite and is quite a raconteur. He's also very generous. I won't embarrass Guy (or me) by revealing how generous; let's just say I'm pretty sure if I'd expressed admiration for his microwave oven, he would have unplugged it from the wall and carried it to my car. All in all, it was one of the nicest, most interesting, insightful and engaging conversation I can recall having with any cartoonist. Thanks, Guy.

Talking cartooning over the foosball table. Guy's students do animation at these computers, hence the cels on the wall for them to study.

6. Historic Boston. Not much to add here, except that we spent a day walking the "Freedom Trail" and seeing all the highlights. A couple of hours were spent in the company of this delightful man, who led a group tour and enhanced our understanding and enjoyment enormously.

My wife Karen and I flanking Revolutionary-era hat maker Nathaniel Balch.

We spent some time exploring the Common, the Public Garden and Beacon Hill, and Boston seems like a perfectly fine city that well deserves it reputation for nighmarish traffic. Now, I expected that in the heart of the city, laid out 250 years before the invention of the auto. Jumbled narrow streets are part of the charm. My real puzzlement and frustration was with the modern stuff, which was a lot more baffling than it ought to be. Tunnels you can't get to, streets with five names within four blocks, interstates to nowhere. And the Massachusetts Turnpike: seriously, what the hell? I'm familiar with the concept of toll roads, but this thing's got booths that take cash, booths that dispense little tickets with teeny Excel spreadsheets printed all over 'em, booths at every exit manned by three guys who collect $1.10 from the six cars per hour that wander through. We went through one booth whose entire purpose seemed to be circling us around to a different booth. To misappropriate an old saying, this is no way to run a railroad.

However, it's a poor guest who leaves badmouthing his host, so I'll wrap up by saying we had a wonderful time in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and only regret we didn't have a chance to see everyone we wanted to. Also, I have never seen so many Dunkin' Donuts franchises in my life.

UPDATE: At the request of exactly one person, I've linked the first four photos above to higher-resolution version of the same. OK, Sherwood?
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Mini-Memo from Boston

Weather Report: Chilly but clear, perfect for our Nor'east trip so far.

Highlight #1: Western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Highlight #2: My work on a wall at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Holy cow.

Highlight #3: Dave Sim, Peter Kuper, Howard Cruse, Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley.

Highlight #4: Especially Terry Moore ("Strangers in Paradise") and his wife Robyn. Nice, nice, nice people. I feel like I made new friends for life.

Highlight #5: Two hours with cartoonist Guy Gilchrist, a kind, generous, and entertaining gentleman. And he bought the pizza.

Highlight #6: Historic Boston. Never been here before, and I love going someplace and having my perspective rearranged. The places in the history books are real, many within a short walk of each other. Cool.

Pictures and more maybe late Wednesday.

LitGraphic at the Norman Rockwell Museum

Lions released from a zoo in war-torn Baghdad; a mother's battle with lung cancer; an American expatriate searching for her identity in Mexico--serious subject matter for any medium, but particularly so for a new wave of critically acclaimed and commercially successful long form comic books. In these illustrated stories, called graphic novels (a mostly grown-up version of the comic book), themes explored include culture, society, and current events, and topics range from heart-wrenching to thought-provoking to risqué....

Norman Rockwell Museum Press Release

Next weekend my wife and I will be taking our first trip to Massachusetts for the opening of the "LitGraphic" exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. The show opens November 10 and runs until May 26, 2008, and has nine pages of original art from Mom's Cancer among other work by Jessica Abel, R. Crumb, Howard Cruse, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Milt Gross, Peter Kuper, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Dave Sim, Art Spiegelman, and many more.

These Rockwell folks are the same ones who flew a camera crew across the country to interview me and sent an 18-wheeler to my house to pick up nine sheets of paper, and they impress me as a first-class organization all the way. I'm also impressed by the many activities the museum is planning in conjunction with the exhibit throughout its run: children's programs, workshops, artists' visits, symposia for educators. They're not just hanging drawings on the walls, they're doing something with them. Cool.

Of course I'm thrilled and honored to have my work in the exhibit. Also puzzled, but I'll try to act like I belong there. When we were exchanging paperwork, the curator mentioned that there's a decent chance this exhibit will travel to other museums after it closes next May. If so, it could be years before I get my pictures back. That's all right. I'll just be jealous if they end up better-traveled than me.

My wife and I are making a little vacation out of the trip, spending a couple of days in Boston afterward. As you might imagine, we're watching the weather pretty closely; hope Hurricane Hugo is long gone and all the electricity's back on by them. We're also getting more invitations from friends in the Northeast than we can possibly accept. I hope there are no hard feelings when we can't see everyone. It's very nice to be asked, thanks.

Pictures and stories will follow I'm sure.
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Some Recent Mentions

British writer Jan Marshall left a comment on my previous post asking permission to borrow my artwork to accompany her post about Mom's Cancer. Of course that's fine--reproducing an excerpt of a work for the purposes of criticism is allowed under copyright law and I'm happy to comply--but I always appreciate it when someone asks. It strikes me as both professional and polite.

Anyway, Jan has now posted a nice review of my book on her blog (dated Sept. 24), which I appreciate very much. I also read quite a bit more of her blog and found it very engaging, with topics touching on her 99-year-old grandfather, books, photography, poetry, and some good opinionated information on cancer. Thanks Jan.

There are some nice short write-ups about the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) exhibit "Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics," to which I contributed four original pages from Mom's Cancer, by The Beat's omnipresent Heidi MacDonald, Pulp Secret, Wizard, and Fleen. the latter focuses on curator Jennifer Babcock, who was about as nice and personable as she could be with me. A lot of artists and works are represented in this big exhibit and, at first glance, I don't see a single mention of Mom's Cancer in any of that brief coverage. That's fine. It still looks like a pretty great show and I hope anyone in the New York area checks it out... and reports back to me.

Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon recently summarized the results of the Harvey Awards, including the one I won and the two I lost. I understand that my trophy has made its way from Cartoon America author Harry Katz, who very kindly accepted it on my behalf, to the desk of Editor Charlie, who is holding it hostage until he can have it professionally photographed with the other Abrams Harvey Award won by Dan Nadel for Art Out of Time. I think sometimes Charlie also closes his door, gently lays the awards on the floor, and rolls around on them. When mine arrives, I intend to inspect it for unhygienic smudges.

Harvey Award results were also summed up by ICV2 News, which I mention only because their story's third graf begins, "Other key 2007 Harvey winners include: Brian Fies...." I like the word "key." It makes my ego puffy.

Finally, the Oregon Statesman-Journal published an obituary for my friend Arnold Wagner, who died August 31. I noticed something with Arnold's passing that also struck me after syndicate editor Jay Kennedy's death last March: the number of people who came forward with nearly identical stories of friendship, encouragement, and generosity was enormous. A lot of people who didn't know each other and might have assumed their relationship was unique started comparing notes and realizing, No, Arnold and Jay treated everyone like that. That's a really nice way to be remembered, I think.
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Mo MoCCA

Friend of the Blog Amanda ("Shrinking Indigo") replied to the previous post to point out that my work is on the poster for the MoCCA exhibit. Why, so it is.

She also promised to check out the show and let me know how it looks. That'd be great! ...and same goes for anyone else in the vicinity of 594 Broadway in the next few months. Right now I don't plan to visit New York City before next January, but y'never know. I like the town and it would be fun.

Thanks, Indigo.

MoCCA: Infinite Canvas

I see that New York's Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) is promoting the exhibition Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics, to which I've contributed four original pages from Mom's Cancer. The show will be up September 14 through January 14, 2008, with an opening reception on September 13. Unfortunately I won't be there, but I know some people who might make it and report back to me.

"The exhibit explores three aspects of online comics," reads MoCCA's blurb. "The unique format and design of webcomics, their appeal to niche audiences, and the transitions between web and print comics." Curator Jennifer Babcock further explains, "webcomics are free of the space constraints and editorial censorship to which printed comics are often subjected...." I agree with that sentiment completely. I also think that freedom to break all the rules doesn't necessarily carry an obligation to do so.

Let me back up to explain that the exhibition's title, "Infinite Canvas," comes (to the best of my knowledge) from Scott McCloud's notion that the Internet provides just that: an infinite canvas. Online, there's no need to restrict a comic to three or four panels, stick to traditional comic book page layouts, or draw in black and white. No need for most of the artistic constraints imposed on comics by 19th-century printing press technology. No need to avoid words that might emotionally scar five-year-old Suzy or give Grandma the vapors. We're finally free. Free!

So why do so few cartoonists take advantage of the limitless space, time and language available to them? Why do so many webcomics look exactly like their print counterparts? Why did mine?

I can't speak for anyone else--although I have some notions--but I put considerable thought into how I wanted Mom's Cancer to interact with the electronic medium that transmitted it. First, I designed the pages to be proportional to a least-common-denominator computer monitor. I wanted anyone on any computer to be able to read each page without scrolling or clicking. That in turn mandated the size I needed to draw to produce art that would be clear and legible at on-screen resolution. My decision was a deliberate break from the infinite canvas idea, which can obviously demand significant reader interaction (and allow the cartoonist to play with story flow as scrolling reveals and conceals information). Those were features I willingly gave up so that my readers could apprehend each individual page as a unit of story--a thought, an idea, a chunk of time. I did that on purpose.

Also, I always had hopes that Mom's Cancer might see print. I didn't know how, I couldn't imagine who would publish such a book, but I wanted to keep my options open. I drew in black and white, colored in the cyan-magenta-yellow palette needed for press, and saved high-resolution versions of everything (not high enough, I later learned, but that's another sad story). I think that same hope motivates more web cartoonists than would admit it, and partly explains why so few break out of the shackles of print: they want it. Print still matters.

For similar reasons, I wrote and drew Mom's Cancer to be as all-ages as possible. It's an adult story, but I wanted it accessible to readers from young children to great-grandparents. There's not a dirty word in it (I actually thought long and hard about the "My God" on Page 99 but couldn't conceive of anything better). I fought my first impulse to draw it dark and gothic with scritchy-scratchy cross-hatching, partly because I wanted it to look as friendly and familiar as a 1950s' comic strip. I wanted people who'd never read a comic or graphic novel to get comfortable and ease into the story, where I hoped to hit 'em between the eyes. The web gave me complete freedom--including the freedom to approach the audience however I wanted.

Still, I share McCloud's frustration (as I perceive it) that almost no one has grabbed webcomics by the horns and exploited the new medium's potential to create something never seen before. Literature done in a new visual language that couldn't have existed until today. Why do so many webcomics consist of tiny, repetitive, static panels of talking heads when they could be ... ANYTHING? I would very much like to see that someday--maybe even try to do it. But that's not what Mom's Cancer was intended to be. I've always seen it less as a webcomic than as a comic that happened to be on the web, and never pretended it was anything else.
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Ends and Odds

I neglected to mention that I recently received copies of the Italian edition of Mom's Cancer--titled, oddly enough, Mom's Cancer. The last time I mentioned the Italian edition, I said I was surprised they didn't translate the title. Editor Lorenzo from my Italian publisher Double Shot-Bottero Edizioni was kind enough to reply that they "talked very much between us if we had to translate the title or not. At the end, we decided for the original title, because the word CANCRO still (frightens) people, and because the book was famous with its original title." That's a nice explanation.

Now that I have it in my hands, I'm happy to report that Lorenzo and his partners did a terrific job. I'm very happy with the look, feel, and quality of their work. Again, my thanks to them; I appreciate the risk they took and hope it's a success for them.

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I think I've decided, with regret, to miss the Baltimore Comic-Con next month. It's not an easy decision. I'm honored, humbled, amazed to have my work nominated for three Harvey Awards, and believe that if someone pays you that kind of respect you should reciprocate by showing up. It seems like the least you could do. But the fact is I live on the other side of the country, the date conflicts with other commitments, and the cost of what would be a cross-continent hit-and-run round trip is pretty high. Editor Charlie is planning to attend and can represent me if I improbably win. I just don't want to leave any impression I take the nominations for granted, because I don't.

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Wednesday should be interesting. A curator from the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts is coming to my home with a cameraman to film an interview that will, as I understand it, accompany the "LitGraphic" exhibition I'm participating in later this year. A couple of weeks ago I sent the museum nine of my favorite original pages from Mom's Cancer, which they'll display with the work of several other writer-cartoonist types. Although "sent" isn't quite the right word; the Rockwell people constructed a specially padded portfolio just the right size for my pages and dispatched an 18-wheel truck to pick it up. (To be fair, the truck was also picking up a lot of other art for other museum customers on its way cross country. But I'm greatly pleased to imagine they sent it just for my nine sheets of paper.) In short, the Norman Rockwell Museum is obviously a first-class professional organization used to working with a much better class of exhibitor than me. But I could get used to it.

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Originals Shmoriginals

This post might be a bit too "inside baseball" for some, but I know a few people who'll appreciate it. If you're not one of them, thanks for your indulgence.

The nice folks at the Norman Rockwell Museum e-mailed me a wish list of the original art from Mom's Cancer they'd like to include in their "LitGraphic" exhibition, which opens this November. I was sorry to inform them that, of the eight pages they requested, four of them suffered from a minor problem called "not actually existing."

I am a proud cartooning dinosaur, drawing with brush, pen, ink, and a strong aesthetic that if paper was good enough for McCay, Kelly and Schulz then, by Zeus, it's good enough for me. But something I noticed in the many months it took me to draw (and live through) Mom's Cancer was how my relationship with digital art--specifically Photoshop--grew and evolved in that time. For example, on Page 10 of my book, I drew a picture of Mom metaphorically drowning in a sea of medical jargon.

Now, I actually did that: the jargon was printed onto a sheet of paper that I carefully trimmed to size, glued to my two-ply bristol board, and painstakingly cut around the shapes of Mom, the waves, the bubbles, and the caption. That's what the original looks like.
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But that's insane! The way to do that panel right (which is to say, the way I would've done it six months later or today) is to create Mom, the jargon, the captions, and the bubbles as separate elements and then layer them atop each other in Photoshop. It'd take one-twentieth the time and look much better. The only downside is that there'd be no original ... just scattered bits and pieces, half of them ephemeral electrons on a hard drive.

I'd regret that. But I'd still do it. Sometimes it's nearly unavoidable. For example....

One of the originals the Rockwell people asked for was the two-panel image of Mom on Page 47 that we also adapted for the cover. Now, Mom's Cancer began life as a Webcomic. Here's how that original looked:


A year later, Abrams agreed to publish Mom's Cancer and Editor Charlie picked this image as the one he wanted for the cover. Two problems: I needed to get rid of the captions--which meant I had to draw what was hidden "behind" them--and I frankly thought I could draw it better. Best to start from scratch. So I drew this:


Obviously the captions are gone. The large space to Mom's right that I inked black in the first version is now blank, to be filled with color as we choose. And there are also no stripes on Mom's shirt. I wasn't sure we'd want the stripes for the cover and I was thinking about trying some fancy color separation stuff so, using a light box to trace over the drawing above, I drew those on a separate sheet of paper:


Then, combining the new drawing of Mom with the separate stripes and captions cut-and-pasted from the Web original gave me the published Page 47:

Combining the same elements differently, cropping, and adding color gave me a book cover. The only thing this process didn't give me was, again, an original that looks like either Page 47 or the cover.

There's a tiny subsequent irony. When we were getting ready for my book's debut, Abrams wanted to make buttons using Mom's profile. The problem was that in my new art, I'd still drawn her with a panel gutter bisecting her head. So for the button graphic I had to digitally erase the panel borders and fill in the missing details. If I'd been smart, I would've drawn it without the panels in the first place. Yet another non-existent original.

As I say, I'm not entirely happy about this state of things. Original cartoon art is very, very cool and I've always gotten both pleasure and education from studying it. I'm afraid we'll have volumes of great original hand-crafted art from the 19th and 20th centuries that will last forever and then nothing from the 21st century onward, as more and more of it is done digitally on media that won't survive a couple of decades (anybody got a 5.25-inch floppy drive?). That's a great loss.

I think the best I can do is value hand-crafted physical artwork and continue to do as much of it as I practically can, within the bounds of modern reproduction requirements and sanity. Although I've become much more proficient with, and even dependent on, Photoshop, I'd much rather spend hours hunched over a drawing board than a computer monitor. Originals matter.
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By the way, I gave the Rockwell Museum a good list of alternative pages that do exist. We'll see what they like.
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Hanged or Hung?

A few days ago I got a letter that made my week and I suspect will leave a warm ember glowing inside me for quite a while.

The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, contacted me about an exhibition they're planning to run between November 2007 and July 2008 called "LitGraphic: The Art of the Graphic Novel." As the letter explains, "This innovative installation will examine the historical use of sequential art as a significant form of visual communication, placing specific emphasis on the art and evolution of the contemporary graphic novel. We are currently exploring the possibility of making this exhibition available to other cultural institutions worldwide."

And then they asked if I'd mind terribly contributing some original work from Mom's Cancer.

Yeah. I think I can come up with something.

The Norman Rockwell Museum....

How cool is that?
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This Inking Life

Mike Lynch is a professional freelance magazine cartoonist who actually makes a living at it, a strange and wonderful enough accomplishment on its own. In addition, he's the co-chair of the Long Island Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, a man I got to know first online and then in person, and a well-connected extrovert who seems determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the brother/sisterhood of cartoonists. I hope it's not too presumptuous to also call him a friend.

Mike wrote a couple of months ago to tell me about an exhibit of cartoon art he's helping put together for the Great Neck Arts Center of Long Island, N.Y. He lathered me up with enough flattery (it didn't take much) to convince me to contribute two pieces of original art from Mom's Cancer for the show that, as you can read on the postcard above, runs from August 12 to October 1. I gleaned from my conversations with Mike that a big part of the center's mission is understanding the artistic process. With that in mind, I also sent along the preliminary sketch and finished printed version of each page, all matted together in the same frame. I think they turned out kind of cool. I wish I had pictures of the finished pieces to share, but last week my girls took the camera to summer camp, where they worked as adult volunteer counselors. So instead, here's a picture of their camp:


They're gonna kill me for that. Anyway, Mike has many, many other friends and/or blackmail materials. Among the artists contributing are Isabella Bannerman (Six Chix, Funny Times), Sy Barry (The Phantom), Mort Drucker (Mad Magazine), Nick Downes (The New Yorker), Joe Giella (Mary Worth, Batman), Guy Gilchrist (Nancy), Irwin Hasen (Dondi--hey, I know him!), Bunny Hoest (The Lockhorns), Dan Piraro (Bizarro), Stephanie Piro (Six Chix), Frank Springer (Phoebe Zeit-Geist, Terry and the Pirates), Rick Stromoski (Soup to Nutz), Carla Ventresca (Six Chix, On a Claire Day), Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey), and Mr. Lynch himself.

The center is also planning a reception and two cartoonists' panels to mark the exhibit, and I don't think I'll be able to fly cross-country to get to any of them. But if you're anywhere near Long Island, please check it out.