People of the (Comic) Book - article by librarian Wendy Wasman

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Jewish Book World v.26(2) Summer 2008, p. 26-29.

This is just part 1 of a 2-part article.

Among the works mentioned in this article are : Palestine, Disguised as Clark Kent, Up, Up, and Oy Vey!, Jews in America : A Cartoon History, Maus, A Contract with God, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, We Are On Our Own, Mendel’s Daughter, Yossel : April 19, 1943, Jew Gangster and Brownsville.

Among the works that will be mentioned in part 2 will be Miriam Libicki’s jobnik!.

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Lauren Weinstein at MOCCA Fest 2008 - TODAY!!!

Due to Lauren Weinstein’s last-minute e-blast message about her scheduled appearances at MOCCA (Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art) Fest this weekend - and due to my own busy schedule this weekend - I was unable to post about this until now. Lauren is the author-illustrator of the anthology Girl Stories, which includes the story “Chanukah Blues” and writer-illustrator of the story “Horse Camp” which appeared in the anthology Stuck in the Middle).

I’ll paste the relevant parts of her message below.

The Goddess of War: Volume One, the first installment of my sprawling epic masterpiece, will debut at the MOCCA art festival this weekend!

For anyone who is used to my memoir-ey work, this is a HUGE departure, but don’t be afraid. IT will knock your socks off, because it is funny, sexy, romantic, and sad and poignant, but also epic and sci-fi and all about the world’s wars… PAST AND FUTURE!

Picturebox signing schedule for Sunday (today) :

11-12: Frank Santoro & Lauren Weinstein
12-2: Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry, Lauren Weinstein
2-3: Frank Santoro, Matthew Thurber, Lauren Weinstein
3-5: Michel Gondry, Paul Gondry, Matthew Thurber

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Jewish Side of MOCCA Fest 2008 - June 7th & 8th

Next weekend, the annual MOCCA (Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art) Festival will take place at the Puck Building in Lower Manhattan (in New York).

The most well-known of the Jewish guests at this year’s MOCCA Festival is, without a doubt, Art Spiegelman, author-illustrator of the Pulitzer-prize-winning Holocaust memoir Maus (although he had done plenty of work prior to that and has been busy since then creating new works & giving lectures).

Other guests of interest to readers of this blog, in no particular order (well, alphabetical order, actually), include :

* Willow Dawson, a talented Canadian artist, who has illustrated the upcoming anthology No Girls Allowed : Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure, written by Susan Hughes & to be published by Kids Can Press. The anthology includes the story of Esther Brandeau, the first Jewish person to immigrate to Canada.

* Evan Dorkin & his wife Sarah Dyer, the couple responsible for the story “One-Punch Goldberg” in Biff Bam Pow! #1, as well as the one-page comic “How to Cook a Gentile” (Heeb #15)

* Arie Kaplan, author of the forthcoming book From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books, who was interviewed by Wizard Magazine last month

* Neil Kleid, author of the graphic novel Brownsville, as well as the forthcoming Migdal David and The Big Khan

* Miriam Libicki, author of the jobnik! series, the first volume of which has been collected in trade paperback

* Chari Pere, author-illustrator of the Jewish humor calendar “A Yearly Shpritz of Jewish Bits: The Ultimate Illustrated Calendar of Jewish Jokes (Old and New)”

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Miriam Libicki and Ariel Schrag at the JCCSF - tomorrow (May 20th)

There’s an article in the May 9th issue of j - the Jewish news weekly of Northern California - “Comic expressions”, reproduced online at http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/35208/format/html/displaystory.html, which gives the background of Miriam Libicki (author-illustrator of the comic book series jobnik!) and Ariel Schrag (editor of the anthology Stuck in the Middle, which contains one of her stories, “Shit”). Schrag and Libicki will be speaking tomorrow night at Intersection for the Arts as part of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco’s “Serial Boxes” series, an exploration of the graphic novel.

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sketch of Steven M. Bergson

Last year, while attending an exhibition of artwork by Tatiana Yuditskaya and Eugene Zhilinsky, Steven M. Bergson was sketched by Eugene.

The sketch - and commentary in Russian - may be viewed at the Éditions Tchaï blog. To see a larger image, click on the first graphic (top-left).

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Association of Jewish Libraries conference (June 2008) in Cleveland

The tentative schedule for the annual Association of Jewish Libraries conference in Cleveland, Ohio may be found at the AJL website (Acrobat format). This year’s convention will be held from June 22nd to the 25th.

Per diem registration for Monday or Tuesday (which includes all of the day’s sessions, as well as that day’s breakfast & lunch) is $200 USD. Registration for the post-conference program on Wednesday (which includes breakfast, the luncheon & the dessert reception) is $75 USD. The registration form may also be found on the AJL website (Acrobat format).

4 sessions at the conference should be of interest to readers of this blog.

Session 2A - Mon., June 23rd, 10:30-11:45 AM, Salon IV
Jewish Wit and Wisdom
“From Jewish Wisdom to Jewish Comics” by Steve Sheinkin, author-illustrator of the graphic novels The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey and Rabbi Harvey Rides Again

Session 2C - Mon., June 23rd, 10:30-11:45 AM, Salon V
Speak Memory
“Mendel’s Daughter : The Art of Remembering”, Martin Lemelman, author-illustrator of Mendel’s Daughter : A Memoir

Session 3D - Mon., June 23rd, 2:00-3:15 PM, Salon VI
Yikes! Pow! Zap! Oy! Israel Graphically
“From Tintin to Migdal David : Representations of Israel and Israelis in Comic Books, Comic Strips, and Graphic Novels”, Steven M. Bergson, blogmaster of The Jewish Comics Blog
“Tales of a Tank Secretary : IDF Comix with a Twist”, Miriam Libicki, author-illustrator of jobnik! : an american girl’s adventures in the israeli army

Post-Conference Program, Session 2A, 2:00-3:15 PM, Salon V & Salon VI
Illustrated Non-Fiction with Christos Nicola & Peter Lane (the author & illustrator of The Secret of Priest’s Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story), Deborah Heiligman (author of 10 books in the Holidays Around the World series), and Bill Rubin (Executive Editor of Nachshon Press, publisher of the graphic history book Homeland : The Illustrated History of the State of Israel

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The Political Graphic Novel - Toronto, June 8th

On Sunday, June 8th at 7:00 PM, 4 comics professionals will take part in a program on political graphic novels at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre as part of the annual Luminato Festival of Arts & Creativity. Hosted by Peter Birkemoe, owner of The Beguiling, Toronto’s top graphic novel and comics bookstore.

The professionals are :

* Anthony Lappé - author of The Shooting War

* Dan Goldman - illustrator of The Shooting War

* Bernice Eisenstein - author-artist of the illustrated autobiography I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors

* Spain Rodriguez - illustrator of Che: A Graphic Biography, as well as “Raid on Entebbe” (The New Two-Fisted Tales #1, 1993).

Tickets are $10 CDN and may be purchased via the Luminato website.

This program is presented with support from The British Council.

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Toronto Jewish Film Festival screenings

This year, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival has included 2 movies in its lineup which should be of interest to readers of this blog.

On Thursday, May 8th at 10 PM, the Bloor Cinema will be showing the documentary Will Eisner : Portrait of a Sequential Artist. To watch a trailer of the film, go to http://montillapictures.com/media/trailer.mpg (MPG format) or http://montillapictures.com/media/trailer_264.mov (MOV format).

On Saturday, May 10th at 11:30 PM, the Bloor Cinema will be showing Wristcutters, the adaptation of the Etgar Keret graphic novel Pizzeria Kamikaze.

If you’re unfamiliar with the work of Will Eisner or the graphic novel Pizzeria Kamikaze and want to familiarize yourself with them before (or after) seeing the films, I would recommend that you drop by my favorite comics shop, The Beguiling. It’s a short walking distance from the Bloor Cinema, so you can buy some graphic novels to have something cool to read while waiting in line. In addition to books by Will Eisner, The Beguiling should have books about Will Eisner, e.g. Will Eisner : A Spirited Life.

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Drafted - FCBD preview (Devil’s Due Publishing)

Among this year’s Free Comic Book Day offerings (available at participating comic books shops on Saturday, May 3rd) will be Drafted from Devil’s Due Publishing.

As described on the FCBD website,

Jerusalem lies in ruins, and the war humanity must fight in the wake of its destruction is like nothing anyone on Earth could have anticipated. When an alien race begins plucking swarms of people from everyday walks of life, they are told to brace themselves to fight in a battle to decide the fate of Earth.

Two of the characters shown on the first pages of the preview are Ben (an Israeli soldier) and Nasr (his Palestinian friend). You can see a free preview of the 1st 3 pages of the free comic book by going to http://www.freecomicbookday.com/download/3p_samples/Devils_Due-FCBD08sample.pdf.

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The New Narrative? Comics in Literature, Film, and Art - Toronto conference

The FREE conference will take place at University of Toronto on May 10th and 11th.

Full program schedule (including room assignments) may be found at http://www.andrewlesk.com/program.rtf (richtext format).

It looks like there are only 2 rooms being used simultaneously, which means an attendee will only miss half of the total sessions. The percentage is a lot lower at other conferences where there are several concurrent sessions.

Of possible interest to readers of this blog are 2 presentations that are part of Panel 3B (Endings 2) on Sunday, May 11th in Room UC 179 (2 – 3:15 PM)

Anthony Enns - “Media, Memory, and the Metropolis in Jason Lutes’ Berlin: City of Stones”

Amir Hussain - “Representing Muslim Lives: Pedagogy and the Comics Journalism of Joe Sacco”

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