zine, [zeen] noun. 1. abbr. of fanzine; 2. any amateurly-published periodical. Oxford Reference

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Sekitani Norihiro

 
 

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via KURUTTA by zytroop on 6/29/09

Summer is making me lazy, this isn't supposed to be a tumblelog. Whatever.

Sekitani Norihiro is an artist that I've been eying for a while but never really checked out. This post is to celebrate the fact that I've finally ordered some of his zines, as soon as they arrive I'll post more about them, providing that they are as good as the following examples of his work promise. His work is almost exclusively collages and almost exclusively awesome:


Now after you've picked up your jaw you might want to read the following interview where he mentions Takashi Nemoto as an influence and check out his website. Over and out.


 
 

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The Cross Hatch Dispatch 6.29.09

 
 

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via The Daily Cross Hatch by bheater on 6/29/09

themaxxanimated

[Above, the return of the animated Maxx (sort of). Below, liquid Dispatch.]

  • In the mood to become famous? It's time for Oni Press Talent Search 2009! At this year's San Diego Comic Con, Oni Press will be conducting portfolio reviews for any artist who illustrates one of Oni's five-page sample scripts. Can't make it to Comic Con? Mail your portfolio by August 15th.
  • The short film Dig Comics, described by its creators as "a love-letter to the art form of comics," will be competing at this year's Comic Con. A feature-length version of the film is in the works.
  • This September, Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas) and Steve Lieber (Whiteout) are teaming up on a new series, Underground, for Image Comics. The story moves at a fast clip from Stillwater Cave all the way to the Kentucky Mountains.
  • Long-time cartoonist/first-time author Eleanor Davis will appear at the 2009 American Library Association Conference on July 13th, where her book Stinky will receive an Honor Medal for the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award. Stinky is the first comic book to ever receive the honor.
  • MTV is streaming old The Maxx cartoons! Since the bizarre cult series is still not available on DVD, you'd best make the most of this viewing opportunity.
  • James Kochalka hacked Super Mario Bros to make a character that looks like his cartoon self/elf. Now, he has released this elf character onto the Internet, for all to download and enjoy!
  • Still pining for a few more applications on your iPhone? Finally! Someone's designed a comic specifically for the darn thing! "A Separate World" is that comic. It even has its own trailer, in Italian.
  • Do you have shelf porn? That is, are your overflowing shelves of comic books (and perhaps also action figures) so beautiful as to verge on the pornographic? If so, send a photo to Chris Mautner of Comic Book Resources, and you could have your shelves featured among those of other shelf pornographers!

–Athena Currier


 
 

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Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech

 
 

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via Feminist Review by Feminist Review on 6/29/09

Directed by Liz Garbus
HBO Documentary Films


"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

Tonight at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) you should turn the channel to HBO to watch the television debut of Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, a documentary about the evolution of freedom of speech in America. At eighty minutes, this film by Emmy Award-winning director Liz Garbus packs an intellectual and emotional punch that is sure to stimulate conversation amongst its viewers, whatever their political leanings. The daughter of civil rights lawyer Martin Garbus, Liz made this film in order to explore the many ways our most fundamental of rights is under attack in the United States.

Beginning with the post-9/11 "patriotic" crackdown on free speech, Garbus makes the case that America is now in an era of Neo-McCarthyism. She walks us through some of the prominent and lesser-known cases in US history, including the ACLU's defense of neo-Nazi protest rallies in Skokie, IL in 1977 and Ward Churchill's termination from the University of Colorado-Boulder thirty years later. The way Garbus sees it, "Free speech is free speech. And free speech means protecting even the ideas you hate"—a sentiment that is repeated often throughout the film.

I appreciated Garbus' attempt to live up to her own ideals, as public figures of many stripes are widely represented in Shouting Fire. Twenty-two interviewees—including former Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Star, gender historian and academic Joan Wallach Scott, United for Peace and Justice co-founder Leslie Cagan, and conservative writer David Horowitz—grapple with challenging questions of where the line should be drawn between academic integrity and academic freedom, when speech becomes a tool of oppressive marginalization, and are limits on speech necessary?

Perhaps because I was working in the New York City public schools at the time, I was particularly moved by the story of Debbie Almontaser, the founding principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), an English-Arabic public school in Brooklyn, New York. KGIA is one of sixty-eight dual language schools intended to assist new immigrants with assimilating to their new home and foster an appreciation for the study of Arabic language and culture. Just one month before the school was slated to open, Almontaser was forced to resign as a result of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim fire that was sparked by Rightwing group Stop the Madrassa, fanned by Fox News, and finally made into an inferno by New York Post journalist Chuck Bennett, who took Almontaser's solicited explanation of the word intifada vastly out of context in order to write a sensationalistic story. The injustice done to Almontaser is devastating, though completely legal according to free speech laws.

From the Pentagon Papers to the Patriot Act, freedom of speech is a complicated issue. Shouting Fire makes a compelling case for why, as Martin Garbus says, if you value the right to speak freely, you must fight for it every day.

Review by Mandy Van Deven
Check out more reviews at http://www.feministreview.org

 
 

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Portals #1 reviewed at Poopsheet.

 
 

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via file under other by shannon.smith@cgi.com (Shannon Smith) on 6/29/09

I reviewed Nic Carcieri's anthology book Portals over at the Poopsheet Foundation. Check it out.

Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith

 
 

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Interview: Craig Yoe Pt. 2 [of 2]

 
 

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via The Daily Cross Hatch by bheater on 6/29/09

joeshustersmpole

In part two of our interview with cartoon art historian Craig Yoe. We discuss the roles that Fredrick Wertham, a Brooklyn-based gang of Jewish Nazis, and the Supreme Court judge who helped found the ACLU played in Joe Shuster's post-Superman SM drawings.

[Part One]

Shuster's name was kept entirely off of the original pamplets.

It was illegal, so he didn't sign it, but I immediately recognized that it was his style and confirmed it with all of my buddies who are Siegel and Shuster historians and they all agreed that it was Joe's work.

What specifically tipped it off?

It's like a detective looking at fingerprints. You can tell. I've made a career of studying the work of cartoonists, and I just knew Joe's style. There are little ticks about his work—the way he shaded it. Few comic book artists used pencil for shading and the little small hands he drew, and the squint of the eye, and the three-quarters back view, and just all of these kinds of things add up to where you can say, "holy shit, it's Joe Shuster." Not the least of which are that the characters look like Superman, and Clark Kent, and Lex Luther, and Lois Lane, and Lana Lang. You've got this alternate universe to the citizens of Metropolis—what happened between the panels.

It's really an early version of fan-fiction.

Oh, yeah, right.

Except that it's actually drawn by the artist himself.

Yeah, this time it's no fan. It's actually the creator of Superman drawing these pictures and it's like the citizens of Metropolis gone wild.

What does the book's supplementary text tackle?

I have the whole history behind the story. When I sold the book, it was just on the basis of being this erotic S&M artwork by Joe Shuster, the creator of Superman, but after falling into this and discovering this work, I fell into the story behind it. Tthis was part of one of the most important censorship cases probably ever in the history of our country. Eventually the case against he Times Square booksellers went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled against these booklets and ordered them destroyed. It was a sad day in our country for freedom of the press. And actually, the judge who delivered the summary was one of the founders of the ACLU. He had a secret identity! By day, he was all for civil rights, and then he rules against these booklets.

And also, four Jewish Nazi juvenile delinquents that eventually became tagged the "Brooklyn Thrill Killers," got a  hold of these booklets and used them as inspiration to commit their crimes, flogging girls in the park and torturing and murdering bums. They were arrested and brought to trial, but the judge of that case called in a psychiatrist who was very familiar with children and teenagers, by the name of Dr. Fredrick Wertham, who we of course know as the author of Seduction of the Innocent and the main figure behind the censorship of comic books.

Wertham entered to interview the leader of the Thrill Killers, who was this Jewish Nazi kid who would yell "sieg heil" and "heil Hitler" during the Pledge of Alliance and sported a Hitler moustache and led his buddies on these crime sprees. The judge ordered Wertham to interview the leader of the Thrill Killers, Jack Koslow, in his cell and found out Koslow was reading comic books and these booklets that Joe Shuster illustrated, and that he was using the text and illustrations from the Shuster books as inspiration for the crimes.

This pre-dates Seduction of the Innocent?

No, it was right around the same.

Do you feel it had a bearing on the introduction of the Comics Code?

Yes it did, because the Senate investigation was about juvenile delinquency, comic books, and pornography. It was called by Senator [Estes] Kefauver, who was trying to make a name through those hearings in his bid for the presidency. Wertham spent his time during those hearings talking about the Nights of Horror booklets and the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. When the Code did start, it was self-censorship on part of the publishers, but Wertham testified that it was ineffectual, because the Brooklyn Thrill Killers got their whips from ads in the back of Code-approved comic books.

They were selling whips out of the backs of comic books?

Yeah. So Wertham used the Brooklyn Thrill Killers to make the publishers be much more strict about the Comics Code. Because he was telling the Senate investigation that the code was really a whitewashing of comics. So this all did figure in. And newspapers and places like Reader's Digest would report about comic books, Nights of Horror, and the Brooklyn Thrill Killers all in the same articles. It was all kind of tied in. But no one ever knew this portion of the history of comics and how this affected the comics of the time.

Do you know of any other comics artist who followed any similar career paths, later in life?

There are a number of cartoonists that were doing comics by day and pornography at night, but none of them of the stature of the creator of Superman and really the comic industry.

–Brian Heater


 
 

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The Hardest Test I Have Ever Taken

 
 

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via FOUND Magazine on 6/28/09

I was volunteering at the recycling center that is part of my elementary school. I was digging through a trash-can, sorting things into paper, plastic, cardboard. I grabbed this out and laughed boisterously - this kid obviously knows what's up.

The Hardest Test I Have Ever Taken


 
 

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Monday, June 29, 2009

The Hamburgersaurus

via FOUND Magazine on 6/28/09
I found this in a Charlaine Harris mystery novel.

The Hamburgersaurus

Zeen Review: NOTES & ERRATA, MY FRIEND CAT + EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL & NOTH...



NOTES & ERRATA, MY FRIEND CAT + EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL & NOTHING HURT by Susy Pow (w/ Roland Lange in EWB&NH)

Susy's a name bandied about my inbox & zeenster traps. I've still yet to meet the lass personally but I hve now encountered some of her zeens via the Format Zeen Shop. Of the 3 titles here, so far so good. 'Notes & Errata' seems to be the most professionally printed, an A5 portrait format # w/ skin of cream or yellow paper w/ bluey-green ink & the usual B&W guts. Actually that's not entirely true, some pages are landscape format & you flip the zeen about to read pages as you go. 'Notes & Errata' is a fairly apt title, I was trying to think of the word to describe her writing & 1 glance @ the cover knocked it on the head. It's kind of like poetry & rather refreshing. I picked up 'Everything Was Beautiful & nothing Hurt' firstly & it contrasted w/ another poetry zeen I'd just got through that was proving difficult & obscure, comparatively. Design wise the look of the zeens are pleasant too, jumping between typed & handwritten pieces to keep the eye interested. Albeit that 'Notes & Errata' seems more carefully put together, the other claims to be slapped together in hours by her & a perhaps drunk Roland. Then we have 'My Friend Cat' a hand drawn, hand  written folded A4 into A7 portrait format description of cats Susy's had in her home, cute, small & about cats, but still erratic. B&W skin & guts. EWB&NH: A5 portrait format, B&W skin & guts, staple bound. N&E: Staple bound too.
www.zines.wordpress.com
www.zines.bigcartel.com

BugPowder Weblog : June 29, 2009

via BugPowder Weblog on 6/29/09

Wayne Said

 
 

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via FOUND Magazine on 6/27/09

Workplace conflict ... one guy's side of the story.

Wayne Said


 
 

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Gabriel García Márquez: A Life

 
 

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via Feminist Review by Feminist Review on 6/28/09

By Gerald Martin
Alfred A. Knopf

In his exhaustively researched biography of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Gerald Martin, who spent seventeen years examining every aspect of Marquez's life and interviewing over 300 people, beautifully takes the reader through the life and times of one of Latin America's most influential writers, a Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most popular novelist in the last fifty years.

Martin traces Márquez's (or "Gabo" as he is affectionately referred to throughout the biography) early beginnings back to Aratacata's early days and to the life of Colonel Nicholás R. Márquez Mejia, Gabo's maternal grandfather, who played an influential and supportive role in the young boy's life until he was swooped up by his nomadic parents at nine years old. It's during that time, Martin writes, that the inspiration for One Hundred Years of Solitude was born and where Gabo learned of magic via his superstitious grandmother.

Living with his parents, Martin writes of the antagonistic relationship with his philandering father, his secondary school years where writes poetry and is acknowledged as a brilliant young scholar, to his University days as a law student, who has no interest in the law, but in literature.

Martin painstakingly examines Gabo's career as an investigative journalist, his travels to Europe and later to Mexico, where he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. The novel was published six years later, catapulting Márquez to fame, fortune and friendships with notable leaders of the left including Spain's Felipe Gonzàlez, France's François Mitterand, and Cuba's Fidel Castro—a source of controversy and criticism for the author who has been a lifelong Liberal.

Gabriel García Márquez: A Life is a magical and intoxicating book that is much more than one man's life story; it is part history, part cultural studies, and part political science. Gerald Martin provides a mesmerizing tribute to an extraordinary writer.

Check out more reviews at http://www.feministreview.org

 
 

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Breutzman, Nicholas

 
 

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via Optical Sloth by admin on 6/27/09

Website

yearbooks1

Yearbooks (with Shaun Feltz & Raighne Hogan)

Technically this should probably be on the Various Good Minnesotans page, but as it's mostly the work of Nicholas (as artist and one of two writers), he gets his own page!  Besides, all those various folks from Minnesota are all going to be doing their own solo work soon, if they're not already, so why not start giving them all their own pages now?  Before I even get into the story here, I have to say that the art is absolutely gorgeous.  Nicholas uses the silences of his characters beautifully to convey emotions that would take him pages of exposition and Raighne nails the drabness of high school while still managing the vibrancy of the students and the general high school art world.  As for the story, it's the tale of a young high school student as he tries to navigate the hallways and avoid getting beat up, learn something from a wise art teacher (but one who's reluctant to show his own work), and deal with his feelings, whatever they are, for an attractive female friend.  It's all tied together by a dream Ryan as he imagines a younger class, all doing their bleak and honest art projects, which causes their teacher to turn into a literal moonbat.  In the meantime there's Ryan trying to learn the basics from his art teacher while coming to the sudden realization that the guy, his expertise notwithstanding, is a bit of a creep.  No, I can't say more without ruining the comic.  There are many books that go back to the high school years in sort of a perfunctory way, dealing with the actual events but without managing to capture the mood.  The whole art team does that beautifully here, as Ryan knows that minding his own business is not enough to avoid confrontations, his female friend struggles basically alone to grow up while being young, gorgeous and a loner, and the whole book beautifully illustrates that the only person you can count on in high school is yourself.  Another great comic from this crew, here's hoping that they stick with their anthology while managing to put out great projects like this.  I wouldn't have guessed Minnesota to be one of the places that could legitimately be called the future of comics, but if these people keep this up they might well get there.  $13

yearbooks2


 
 

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Had Their Way

 
 

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via FOUND Magazine on 6/27/09

I'm not sure I want to know.

Had Their Way


 
 

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‘THE CATERER’ by Jeff Lint

 
 

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‘DOG COMICS’ by Michael Deforge

 
 

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via ARTHUR MAGAZINE - WE FOUND THE OTHERS by Floating World on 6/28/09

Michael Deforge is an amazing illustrator/comics artist/midi composer living in Toronto.  He's got a lot of projects going on but he also found time to share some new DOG COMICS with Arthur.

dogcomics


 
 

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Along the Erie

 
 

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via Frank's Place by Frank Dutton on 6/29/09


We took a hike down the Erie yesterday. We spotted "Wyoming Willie" the third most famous groundhog in Pennsylvania along the tracks.

 
 

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Sunday Secrets

 
 

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via PostSecret by postsecret on 6/28/09




PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.




-----Email Message-----

Frank,

I noticed a woman had written a postcard on your site today about post partum depression. I wanted to extend to her and any other woman suffering our resource 1-800-PPD-MOMS.

There she can find comfort in the referral to a mom in her area who has also suffered from the effects of PPD/PPP; received the help she needed; and then gone on to get peer counselor training to offer help and hope to other moms who may be suffering in silence.

My heart goes out to her and as you know Kristin [my wife] died by suicide as a result of poorly treated post partum depression which turned into post partum psychosis. I started the Kristin Brooks Hope Center [1-800-SUICIDE] to help moms, and others, suffering as Kristin did.

Thanks,
Reese




-----Email Message---

Dear Frank,

I almost forgot that I sent that secret before I deployed to Iraq again.  I ended up telling them the real reasons, but all they really cared about in the end was I came back safe and sound.

-USMC
















PostSecret Community






-----Email Message-----
One week I missed church when I stopped to help a hurt cyclist.






















(Via Livejournal)
Hopefully you won't get those two mixed up!





Follow PostSecret on Twitter to see the Saturday Secrets.




-----Email Message-----
Someone to hear them is just as necessary.



 
 

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