It’s been a rough few weeks. Life has gone a bit haywire and I’m now seeking balance and focus to move forward. The wise words of my friend Avi, reminded me of the wisdom of hedgehogs, their indomitable focus, and their record for success. The book I am working on with Harvey Pekar is moving forward and will be published. I will do my best to honor my friend and the work we started together. Stay tuned for updates.
I just got the news. I’m actually shaking as I type these words. My role model, my friend, and my collaborator are gone. We hadn’t spoken in a week because of the 4th of July holiday, I was planning on calling him this afternoon to discuss pages 65-100 of the script. I miss your voice already Harvey … I’m crushed.
When I was growing up in the 1980s comics were seen as puerile and kinda retro. All the cool kids were playing with Atari or later Nintendo. Reading Teen Titans and or The West Coast Avengers was not an enviable past time. I never brought my comics into school for fear of being ridiculed by teachers…and when I once brought a comic on a school field trip to read on the bus, I was made fun of. Now comics are the bottom feeder for TV and cinema and comic book art can be found in museums. A quick Google search of “comic book studies” reveals a plethora of journals and conferences dedicated to the academic use of comic books. University departments in English, Communications, Cognitive Studies and Linguistics have found their new darling … and I am happy to report that comics have finally grown up!
Here’s a quick list of some links to check out:
http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archive.shtml
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=1804/
The untitled graphic novel that I am working on with Harvey Pekar is moving along nicely. Working with Harvey is a pleasure. He calls me about once or twice a week to check in and/or read me new versions of the script. He’s always gracious on the phone and I am always smiling when I hang-up with him. People seem to be surprised when I tell them how nice Harvey is. I mean, he calls me boychik! I wonder if he’s mellowing with age or his public persona is just “warped” from decades of media depiction. He’s nowhere near the curmudgeon that he seems like in film and in print. He’s like the storytelling, encyclopedic uncle I never had. Add to the mix an amazing editor in NYC, and a no-nonsense letterer in Nova Scotia and we’ve got quite the merry band working on this project. Stay tuned for more updates in the months ahead. I am happy to report that it’s full steam ahead!
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook or have had the chance to sit with me in a diner recently, you know that I am not happy with the conclusion of the TV series Lost. I found the pink ribbon, ecumenical, cheesefest that was the series finale to be VERY UNSATISFYING. Not only did it rip off the Six Feet Under finale with the whole, “we all die at some point” BS, but it completely sidestepped the plot that had driven the show for its entire run. All of season 6 was a waste and I wish that it had all ended with Juliet hitting the nuke. To ignore the elegant scaffold that they had built so meticulously, is a narrative crime.
I just finished the first TPB for Unwritten, Vertigo’s new spotlight series. The series and the fifth issue in particular were just nominated for Eisner Awards. The story is very meta and alludes to the internet in interesting ways. The central premise is about literary geography. By knowing the places where authors like Shelley and Kipling came up with their infamous creations the protagonist, annoyingly named Tom Taylor, can solve the mystery. The art is succinct and gorgeous. The narrative style is intriguing… two thumbs up!
Four years ago I shifted gears a bit. After devoting seven years to a biblical comic book I decided to learn more about technology. I moved to Vancouver for a year and came back to Philly. I then began working with JPS (coincidentally the publisher of my book) using my new found tech savvy and comix-making chops. My challenge was to envision a new way of interacting with an archive of over a 1000 books of Jewish content. I decided to measure the scope and start with just one book. My hope is that this is the beginning of the data cloud of Torah. Welcome to the Tagged Tanakh.
The first print run of Megillat Esther is now sold out. Thank you to everyone out there who purchased the book or shared it with their friends. I’m so pleased that people are still being turned on to the book. In order to ensure that Megillat Esther stays in print please place a back-order with JPS. Also, I’m considering making some changes with the second edition and I am taking requests, so shoot me an email~
As the full moon ascends we celebrate the topsy turvy nature of life with Purim. This holiday is the Jewish spin on a global rejoicing of the Spring to come. Persian New Year, Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras and Purim coincide by weeks as each culture celebrates the fool as the king and then imbibe lots of booze. I celebrated the break-fast of Taanit Esther with the opening of my show in NYC at the Yeshiva University Museum, in a blizzard. Then, I enjoyed the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMa. Marveled at Central Park under a foot of snow and then boozed it with friends and watched Olympic curling. Today, I presented the art history of the Book of Esther to a dozen members of suburban synagogue outside of Philly. And so it was written in the Blog of My Days on Purim 14 Adar, 5770
This weekend WB Studios pushed back the release of their next comic book adaptation The Losers. The special ops team gone rogue will now premiere just a week before the updated A-Team movie. As a former high school classmate of Bradley Cooper, I have this message for him…”YOU BACKED THE WRONG HORSE!” Had Mr. Cooper had a more savvy agent he would have counseled Hollywood’s new It Boy to do the OTHER rogue special ops team flick. The Losers deals with topics more au courant than the A-Team and I predict the film will have more success.