A September Saturday and Such

We mentioned it earlier this month, but Mark Parisi waited
until the actual anniversary of Off The Mark to celebrate.

© Mark Parisi

Mark lets us in on the in-joke at his Facebook page.
GoComics notes the anniversary.

The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, today announced that it will award Art Spiegelman with the 2022 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL).

Best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, a two-volume genre-bending retelling of his parents’ survival as Polish Jews during the Holocaust, Spiegelman’s deeply personal body of work includes Breakdowns, The Wild Party, In the Shadow of No Towers, a collection of three of his sketchbooks entitled Be a Nose!, and MetaMaus, a companion to The Complete Maus. Spiegelman is the first comic artist to receive the DCAL medal [emphasis added], which will be presented to him by author Neil Gaiman at the National Book Awards Ceremony on November 16, 2022.

Read the National Book Foundation announcement here. 

 

Cartoonist Mike Lynch attended the
National Cartoonists Society: Drawing Inspiration:
Cartoonists’ Collections NYC Gallery Show Opening
and presents a photo gallery of old and new friends and cartoons on display.

 

 
© Batom Inc.

It looks like Tom Batiuk’s website has been redesigned.

 

I’ve been a cartoonist my entire life. Through many careers—newspaper reporter, environmental chemist, freelance writer, science writer—my creative passion involved combining words and drawings to tell stories in a way that neither words nor drawings could by themselves: comics.

© Brian Fies

One reason I love making comics is that the medium lends itself to intimate stories about people and their lives. Asking readers to glean meaning by combining text and images in their minds draws them deeply into a story. They become a part of it. If a comic works right, it can feel almost like telepathy between the author and the reader. When readers empathize with a character—when they really care about what happens to abstract scrawls of black ink on white paper—that’s the magic and power of comics.

Meet a Local Cartoonist presents Brian Fies.

 

From Tom Richmond:

Early next month MAD #28, which is being treated at the official 70th anniversary issue of the magazine, gets released. In a break from the current (almost) full reprinted content format MAD #28 will have quite a bit of new work in it, including a new feature from my CLAPTRAP co-hort Desmond Devlin and I!

   
© EC Publications

MAD Magazine is celebrating its 70th anniversary with their cover dated December 2022 issue, available October 4. The issue will contain as usual a mix of new and reprint material, but considerably more new comics than it has of late.

Mark Evanier mentioned the new issue while wishing Sergio Aragonés birthday greetings:

… Matter of fact, I think this is supposed to be a secret but since they can’t fire me and nobody told me not to mention this, Sergio has recently drawn some new material for MAD.  The magazine remains, sadly, a reprint vessel but they’re doing some new pieces for an upcoming issue celebrating its 70th anniversary!

 

More Art Spiegelman.

The Chicago Public Library’s One Book, One Chicago program, now in its 21st year, has asked the city to read familiar favorites (“Pride and Prejudice”), harrowing memoirs (Elie Wiesel’s “Night”), environmental reporting (“The Sixth Extinction”), fantasy adventures (Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”), local history (“The Warmth of Other Suns”), local coming-of-age masterpieces (“The House on Mango Street”), heady sci-fi (“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”). Yet as eclectic as those picks may seem, its new selection for the 2022-23 One Book, One Chicago offers something surprising:

 
Maus © Art Spiegelman

A response.  Or perhaps, a provocation.

Either way, the choice of “Maus,” Art Spiegelman’s classic graphic novel about the Holocaust — which will get the typical One Book, One Chicago treatment, with the usual walking tours, workshops, screenings, lectures and eventual on-stage discussion with Spiegelman (this fall) — is no mere enthusiastic reading recommendation. Pointedly, it comes just nine months after a school board in Tennessee voted to remove “Maus” from schools, citing curse words and an image of nudity.

The Chicago Tribune on the city’s public library choice to highlight Maus.

 

Reminder:

The Reuben Awards Fest is quickly approaching.
Cut the number of days in the above notice in half!

 

Finally:

© Clay Jones

A complaint. Not about another QEII cartoon – I actually liked this one. Except …

It’s “Her Majesty’s” not “Her Majesty is.”

I forgive Clay Jones.
He’s a youngster and was only a few years and a few months old when the album was released.
And if you google “The Beatles Her Majesty lyrics” the first result is what Clay writes.
But it is “Her Majesty’s.”