Tag: Alison Bechdel

Quick Hits | Nirvana Comics in Knoxville wins the first Image Select Retailer Award

Plus: News on Rob Liefeld, Scout Comics, G. Willow Wilson and the Robert E. Howard awards.

Nirvana Comics in Knoxville, Tennessee has won Image Comics’ inaugural Image Select Retailer Award. The winner was announced this weekend at the Emerald City Comic Con during an event hosted by Lunar Distribution.

Images Comics announced the award last month as a way to recognize retailers “that are going above and beyond to serve their customers, expand readership and grow a healthier marketplace.” Customers were able to vote for their favorite store via an online form.

“This is such a huge honor,” said Grant and Jasmine Mitchell, co-owners of the store. “Thank you Image Comics for all you’ve done to help the comic shop industry. Thank you to all our customers who nominated us. Your support and friendship is why we do this everyday. The best is yet to come!”

According to Image, the shop was in the top tier of most nominations by sheer volume from “happy customers eager to pay it forward to the store they love.” They’ll receive several prizes from Image, including a commemorative medallion and their choice of a comic with a gold foil exclusive variant cover branded with their store logo.

“The response to this award was phenomenal with thousands of nominations submitted in just a few days,” said Alex Cox, director of direct market sales at Image Comics. “Reading that many testimonials from people praising their local comic shops was a great reminder of how amazing the comics community can be, and Nirvana Comics stood out as a prime example of a store that truly values their customers, and makes new fans every day.”

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Riad Sattouf named Grand Prix winner at 50th annual Angoulême

The creator of ‘The Arab of the Future’ wins the French festival’s biggest prize.

Riad Sattouf, the creator of The Arab of the Future and Esther’s Notebook, has won this year’s Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

The 44-year-old French cartoonist, who has also directed feature films, was quoted as saying “I am deeply honored and moved. It’s the centerpiece that was missing at the top of my ego pyramid” upon accepting the award.

Sattouf is best known for The Arab of the Future, or L’Arabe du Futur, his six-book collection about growing up in Libya and Syria in the 1970s and 1980s. Four of them have been released in the United States. He’s also a former contributor to France’s satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and is the creator of the Esther’s Notebooks comic strip, a collection of which was released this month in the United States.

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Quick Hits | Rest in peace, Tim Kennedy, Aline Kominsky–Crumb

Plus news on Hunter Gorinson, Steve Ditko, Anders Nilsen, Angoulême and more.

Archie Comics artist Tim Kennedy, who collaborated artistically with his twin brother Pat, has passed away. No cause of death has been reported.

The Kennedy brothers began working for Archie in the late 1980s, after graduating from the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic Design. They’ve been regular contributors ever since, drawing classic Archie stories as well as projects like the popular Life With Archie, which showed two alternate takes on Archie marrying Betty and Veronica.

“For decades, the Fabulous K Bros have dazzled fans around the world, bringing some of the funniest and most difficult stories from idea to the page,” said Archie Comics President and Editor-in-Chief Mike Pellerito. “No matter the challenge of illustrating a difficult scene with a giant Ferris wheel, intricate architecture, spaceships, car chases or any other wild story idea, they handled it seemingly with ease. Over the past decade or so I think their work has become some of the best and most versatile at Archie.”

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Quick Hits | Rachel Pollack hospitalized

Rest in peace, Lily Renée. Plus news on IDW Media, censorship in Missouri, Paul Allor and more.

Creators | Former Doom Patrol writer Rachel Pollack has been hospitalized and is currently in the ICU, according to a GoFundMe page started by Patricia Nolan. The page is seeking financial help for Pollack’s health care. “If she is able to go home, she will need 24-hour care. Up to now, we haven’t needed your help. It is time now,” the message reads. Pollack, who is also a novelist and Tarot expert, in addition to writing comics, most recently worked on the Comixology Originals title The Never Ending Party.

Passings | Lily Renée, who worked as a penciller and inker on titles for Fiction House and St. Johns Publications back in the 1940s and 1950s, has passed away at the age of 101. Trina Robbins reported the news on Facebook after hearing from Renée’s son Rick. “She died peacefully at home, as was her wish, yesterday after living a full life of more than 101 years. There is a time for all of us and her death comes on the heels of the birth of her third great grandchild earlier this year,” he said in his message.

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Comics Lowdown | ‘Gender Queer’ creator responds

Plus: More book challenges, creator interviews, and recommended reading.

In a thoughtful op-ed in the Washington Post, Maia Kobabe responds to critics who have challenged her book Gender Queer in school libraries. She writes that when she was growing up, she turned to books to help her understand something she couldn’t put into words, and that she wrote Gender Queer primarily for her own family, who were supportive but also puzzled. And she ends with this:

Three weeks after I first heard about the “Gender Queer” ban at Fairfax County Public Schools, I received this message:

“You probably won’t ever see this but I am a queer FCPS student! My mom and I read your book. I loved it! I related to almost everything you said. I felt so understood and not alone. I think my mom understands me better and I’m more confident in confiding in her since she read your book. Thank you so much for creating your memoir!”

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Comics Lowdown | Harvey Awards announce 2021 Hall of Fame inductees

Plus: Three new members join the CBLDF board, Noelle Stevenson’s Substack and more!

Harvey Awards logo

The Harvey Awards Committee have announced the five creators who will be inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame this year:  Manga creator Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma 1/2, Inu Yasha); horror comics artist Bernie Wrightson, the co-creator of Swamp Thing; cover artist and painter Jeffrey Catherine Jones; artist Barry Windsor-Smith (Conan the Barbarian); and Michael Kaluta (The Shadow, Starstruck). The latter four formed an artists’ commune called The Studio in 1975; in his 2011 obituary of Jones, Tom Spurgeon explained its significance:

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Comics Lowdown | Dog Man once again rules the best-seller charts

Plus: News on ‘Fun Home,’ Vault Comics, IDW, DC’s new GM and more.

Not surprisingly, Dog Man has once again claimed the top spot on best-seller charts for USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Indie Bound, Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail, among others. It’s the ninth book in Dav Pilkey’s popular kids graphic novel series to land at No. 1 on the best-seller chart.

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2020 Eisner Hall of Fame nominees announced

Judges choices include Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell.

Comic-Con International has announced this year’s nominees for the Eisner Hall of Fame. They include two judges’ choices — who will be automatically inducted — and 14 other nominees, four of whom will be inducted based on voters’ choices.

The judges’ choices are Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell, both of whom worked in the magazine industry. Brinkley, a.k.a. the “Queen of Comics,” created comics and illustrations for many Hearst newspapers, including the Denver Post and the New York Journal-America. She became well-known for her “Brinkley Girl” illustrations circa 1913 through the 1940s. Campbell, meanwhile, helped define the visual style of Esquire magazine and created comics for it, Life, Cosmopolitan and Playboy during his career. He was the first African-American cartoonist published in nationally distributed slick magazines.

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Harvey Awards announce 7 for their 2019 Hall of Fame class

Mike Mignola, Alison Bechdel, Will Elder, Jack Davis, John Severin, Marie Severin and Ben Oda make up the largest class ever for the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.

The Harvey Awards have announced seven inductees into their Hall of Fame for this year, including Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, Fun Home creator Alison Bechdel and five of Harvey Kurtzman’s core 1950s MAD collaborators. This is the largest of all Hall of Fame induction classes in the 31-year history of the Harvey Awards.

“My very first comic industry award was the 1994 Harvey Award for Best Artist on Hellboy. I never expected that award, but I took it as a sign that I might actually be on to something,” Mignola said. “It is a great honor to be inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame—something I certainly never could have imagined. And I’ll take it as proof that I haven’t embarrassed myself too badly over the last 25 years.”

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Comics Lowdown: Cartoonists entitled to freedom of expression in India

Parents fight to remove Alison Bechdel’s ‘Fun Home’ from school curriculum, Hope Larson’s ‘All Summer Long’ and more!

Legal: The high court in Madras, India, has ruled that political cartoonists are entitled to freedom of expression, stating that since it is their job to sway public opinion, often by making fun of public figures, they should not be vulnerable to lawsuits:

Upholding cartoonists’ unbridled freedom of expression, Justice Swaminathan stated that the “art of the cartoonist is often not reasoned or even-handed, but slashing and one-sided.”

He went on to quote extensively from US Supreme Court Justice William Rhenquist’s celebrated judgement in Hustler Magazine Inc v Falwell (1988): “The political cartoon is a weapon of attack, of scorn, ridicule and satire; it is least effective when it tries to pat some politician on the back. It is usually welcome as a bee sting, and it is always controversial in some quarters.”

The judge and several other commentators made numerous references to American cartoons, including the New Yorker cover depicting Donald Trump naked.

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