Ramps (wild leeks), forest cat, trout lilies, brook, melting snow, raccoon print, some kinda furry pussy willow kinda things on a fallen branch.
I’m the guest editor of Best American Comics 2011, which will be coming out this fall. The amazing Jillian Tamaki drew the cover—she just posted the art on her blog, along with some discarded ideas. I really love the final drawing.
It’s interesting to read about her experience doing sketches on the Cintiq. This is a very fancy digital pen system that enables you to draw right on your computer screen, thus obviating the annoying distance problem of graphic tablets in which you draw here, and your line shows up over there.
Look, my brother John and me got mentioned in this list in the Village Voice of “The Ten Best Musician/Comic Artist Friendships!”
I remember once going to a record store with John when I was twenty and he was sixteen, and the clerk being so impressed with the stuff he was getting. I think it was a Kraftwerk album. I was proud to have such a discerning little brother. In recent years, a fan of his work with Ministry has shown up at a couple of my readings. This makes me feel very happy and connected.
If you’re in the Boston area, come hear her supreme awesomeness Lynda Barry and me talk with comics scholar Hillary Chute at Wellesley on Friday night.
I’ve been reading Lynda’s new book about drawing. It has been immensely inspiring as I slowly grind into gear to begin drawing the memoir about my mom that I’ve been fussing over for years now.
The Bechdel Test gets a mention in this week’s New Yorker, in an article by Tad Friend about the actress Anna Faris. I’ve had the magazine sitting here all week, but hadn’t made it past “I Was Gandhi’s Boyfriend” by Paul Rudnick. I only found out about it when someone from the blog She Said, She Said emailed me a link to their recent post about the test.
Hi. Sorry I’ve been so inactive here recently. I went into a deep trough of work on my long-overdue book, which is a good thing.
I hardly remember how to make a blog post…but I will try.
I thought I would mention the curious spate of references lately to what seems to now be officially called The Bechdel Test. I’ve made at least a couple of posts about this phenomenon…here’s one. And then Neda Ullaby did this NPR piece. It’s all about a cartoon I did a hundred and twenty six years ago about two lesbians going to the movies, and how one of them won’t see a movie unless it meets three criteria. I totally ripped this idea off from a karate buddy one day when I couldn’t come up with an idea for my strip, but I’ve been unsuccessful at disconnecting my name from it.
Anyhow, I feel vaguely sheepish about the whole thing but it just seems to have a life of its own.
The Guardian’s (UK) Sunday Magazine had this recent column by Eve Wiseman that cites the Bechdel Test.
It’s like the culture is finally catching up to the radical lesbian-feminist notion from a quarter century ago that women can be subjects. Thanks to the various people who tipped me off to these links!
