I just bought a page of original art from Howard Cruse’s epic graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby. I got to see some of these pages way back in the early 90s when Howard was working on the book. But I’d forgotten how huge and amazing they are. Look at this thing!
I know it’s overlapping the sidebar, sorry, but I don’t want to run the image any smaller.
Anyhow, I’m just blown away to be in the presence of Howard’s incredible line work. He did this all with a freakin’ Rapidograph. And bear in mind, this is ONE of 210 other densely cross-hatched, beautifully designed, painstakingly hand-lettered pages. You should buy a page too! Go here! There’s art from his long-running strip Wendel, too, and it’s all on sale.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Fun Home The Musical contest! All 27 of you. The winners were notified today.
Has anyone seen the Salinger movie? Hol and I went tonight. It was kinda cheesy, like one of those annoying History Channel shows that beats you over the head and repeats itself constantly.
So the musical based on my book Fun Home is about to open at The Public Theater in NYC. It will be in previews from September 30 through October 21. October 22nd is opening night, which I am sadly going to miss, but I will be at the October 19th performance just before they “freeze” the show for the official run.
The theater has given me two pairs of tickets to give away. I thought I would make a little contest, a little series of questions about my book, and if you want to play, you can email your answers in and we will pick two winners at random from the people who get them right. I say “we” but I really mean my kind girlfriend Holly who has agreed to manage this since I am a little crazed right now. Also, I know it’s kind of weirdly narcissistic and self-referential to make people answer questions about my book, but I suppose that is the blight memoirists were born for, to paraphrase Gerard Manley Hopkins, so I will embrace it. Here they are:
1. What is the date of my father’s death?
2. What is the name of the family hunting camp where my dad takes my brothers and me camping?
3. What was the line that my father added to my first poem, “Spring”?
4. What was the name of the bar my father tried to take me to when I was 19?
5. What is the phrase my father writes to me in a letter, echoing something Stephen Dedalus says near the beginning of James Joyce’s Ulysses?
If you know the answers, email them to Hollyraetaylor at gmail by 5pm on Friday September 27. And she will pick two winners at random. Assuming that more than two people choose to spend their time in this fashion.
If you don’t want to bother with the contest, you can get discounted tickets to the preview performances with this code: ALISON
Go here to purchase tickets. Full price is 90 bucks, but with the discount code they’re 50.
On another note, today at 4:44pm the earth’s axis is tilting neither toward nor away from the sun.
