One of our very own gets imortalized

What is Sunday Comix's Andrea McEnaney doing being quoted in the pages of this week's New York Observer? She's talking about Bill Hemmer (of course!) and her comic strip, The Adventures of Chad Cleanly, whose main character is based on FOX's Mr. Hemmer.

More Mid-Ohio-Con Coverage...

The fine people over at ComicMix were pounding the pavement this past weekend at Columbus' largest annual convention and they have an interview with a con neighbor of mine (and local Columbus web comic creator), Dave Willis!

Say, did you know Ricardo Montalban is 87? He'll always be Mr. Roarke to me.

High Praise for Columbus Comix Culture

Chuck Moore wrapped up his Comic Related coverage on the Mid-Ohio-Con with this to say:

"It was a great show! The relaxed pace and positive attitude of the show staff really contributed to making it a success. Organizer Roger Price and everyone who worked so hard to put on the show should be proud.

"We will return for next year's Mid-Ohio-Con and we'll be back to Columbus for S.P.A.C.E. (www.backporchcomics.com) March 1-2, 2008.

Not to be ignored and in the area is the Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond gallery show. Put on by Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts (www.wexarts.org) and the Cartoon Research Library (www.cartoons.osu.edu), the show will run May 10th - August 17th, 2008.

When it comes to comics, Columbus is at the top of their game and that's proving to be a very good thing."

And, of course Sunday Comix will be doing it's thing every month at the Upper Arlington Library as well as putting on a gallery show or two over the next few months... Yep., without a doubt, 2008 is going to be a banner year for comics in Columbus.

Total Mid-Ohio-Con Coverage

I recently discovered the fantastic Comics Related news & reviews website and they have a phenomenal amount of coverage already of this year's Mid-Ohio-Con. Chuck Moore will be posting updates with a steady flow of photos and commentary all throughout the weekend up until Monday morning.

I know of a few Sunday Comixers who are going to be at the show: Sean Forney will have a table, Molly Durst and Kel Crumb will be attending the show, Michael Neno, Ray Tomczak and Mike Lucas might be there... oh-- and me, Max Ink. I'll be set up with a table selling copies of my comic, Blink.

So if you're going to be there at the show, have a good time and say hello. If you're not there, then read Mr. Moore's coverage and see what you're missing (and make plans to show up next year!)

Groo Celebrate 25 Years!

If you don't know Sergio Aragones & Mark Evanier's Groo, than you don't know cheese dip! As noted in Comics Related, this year's Mid-Ohio-Con celebrates 25 years of Groo with a special program book with art by Sergio Aragones and colors by Thom Zahler.

The limited edition program book is provided free of charge to all show attendees, while supplies last, courtesy of Maerkle Press. The Groo celebration will continue as both Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier will be on hand all weekend long, November 24 & 25.

Eat Up "OH, COMICS!" at Mid-Ohio-Con

Oh,Comics! #16 the "Food" issue will makes its debut at Mid-Ohio-Con on November 24 and 25. Oh,Comics! started at Mid-Ohio-Con back in 1988 and was present with an new issue each year until 2003. Now it's back again with 98 delicious pages featuring the work of Matt Dembicki, Craig Bogart, Max Ink, Mike Carroll, Pam Bliss, Larry Blake, Larned Justin, Chad Lambert, James V. West, Megan Corby, Kel Crum, Brian Canini, David Grant, Ben Small, Steven Myers and Bob Corby.

This delectable anthology will also be available at www.backporchcomics.com after November 26.

Rejects Rejoice!

Gag cartoonists... have you ever felt down after getting the short end (or sharp point) of the editorial stick?

Cartoonist Matthew Diffee feels your pain (or perhaps your indigestion... if you're an elephant). Over the course of eight years, Matthew Diffee has had more than 100 of his illustrations published in the cartoonists' bible, The New Yorker. But that magazine gets more than 500 submissions a week — and for each issue, the editors select only 20 cartoons, in a process that Diffee says may or may not involve the use of darts.

So even Diffee has had to deal with rejection. Happily, he's found a channel: His new book, featuring his own work and that of 37 other New Yorker regulars, is The Rejection Collection, Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap.

Listen to Mr. Diffee's interview on NPR's Fresh Air and feel the cartoon love (and rejection).

The Politics of Slugfests

I am quite often surprised by the venues in which I will encounter stories on comics and graphic novels. I certainly never would have expected the self-styled journal of "liberal intelligence," The American Prospect to feature as its cover story a report on current trends in super-hero comics, complete with a blow up of a panel from Warren Ellis' Black Summer.

The article by Julian Sanchez examines recent attempts, in stories that directly or indirectly criticize the Bush administration, from Black Summer to Marvel's Civil War, to mix progressive politics and super-heroes. It is Sanchez's conclusion that, while well intended, these super powered political allegories ultimately fail because of what he sees as the conservative--he goes so far at one point as to use the word "fascist"-tendencies inherent in the nature of the super-hero genre itself.

Sanchez cites Civil War as "...the clearest example..." of his thesis: "The Superhero Registration Act," he writes,"is a straightforward analogue of the USA PATRIOT Act; the rhetoric of its opponents could have been cribbed from an ACLU brief. But under scrutiny, their civil libertarian arguments turn out to hold very little water in the fictional context. The 'liberty' the act infringes is the right of well-meaning masked vigilantes...to operate unaccountably, outside the law--a right no sane society recognizes."

Sanchez, in my view, has a valid point. Super-heroes have always been defenders of the establishment and the status quo, and political allegories in the genre have always worked better when the so-called heroes become the oppressors rather than the freedom fighters.

Festival of Photos

Thanks to Craig Boldman over in the NCS Great Lakes Chapter for taking these great photos of the "Plot Threads" event at the Thurber House as well as a few shots from the OSU Festival of Cartoon Art.

The Daily Cartoonist has a good list of links to other photos & write-ups on the Festival. Hard to believe we'll have to wait another three years until the next one! Be sure to keep calendar clear for October 2010!


Can you name all the artists who contributed to this jam?

Mike Peters at OSU Festival of Cartoon Art

Mark Anderson, posted this video of the last 7 minutes of Mike Peters' presentation at the OSU Festival of Cartoon Art last weekend. I was fortunate to see the whole thing live.