Snapshot VII Lalo Alcaraz Lalo Alcaraz is a young, hip Hispanic editorial cartoonist who also draws a wryly funny comic strip called La Cucaracha (The Cockroach). I was expecting the heavy-handed political humor as presented by Tom Tomorrow earlier in the day, but Lalo had the audience laughing hard at his wit. He started by opening with a clip from CNN where he got the best of a clueless T.V. reporter. Then it was on to the one-liners: "A Chicano is a pissed-off Mexican-American." "What's the difference between a Chicano and a Hispanic? About 60 grand a year." Lalo received an angry letter from a reader who was offended by the name of his comic strip, La Cucaracha. But it turned out said reader was the owner of the Gordito Bandito restaurant, which featured a fat Mexican bandito as its mascot. "Latinos are an irony-deficient people," Lalo noted. Before leaving the stage, he put in a plug for his new cartoon collection La Migra Mouse all about a Mickey Mouse look-alike who happens to be a migrant laborer. I regret that I didn't pick up a copy before heading home, because it looked like a nicely pointed satire.
******* Snapshot VIII- Short Subjects Outside of attending one of the National Cartoonists Society awards banquets, the OSU Festival of Cartoon Art offers the greatest opportunity to hang out with famous cartoonists on an informal basis. During the two days of this year's Festival, I came home with enough cartoonist anecdotes to fill a year's worth of Pen Stuff issues. Here's some quick impressions garnered between the official presentations. Early Saturday morning, I was engaged in an impromptu conversation with fellow Comics Journal scribes like R.C. Harvey, when original art historian/collector/dealer George Hagenauer showed up with a huge portfolio of original art from artists of comic books, strips and gag cartoons. And each piece was for sale! I resisted the temptation to ask if he accepted credit cards. But we were all treated to an instant art display of cartooning greats like Roy Crane, Bob Powell, Jack Kirby and dozens more. Saturday afternoon found me sitting at a small table near the hotel bar listening to a political discussion by Al Feldstein, Jeff Smith (creator of Bone) and Charles Brownstein, head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Still later, I had a nice discussion with Art Spiegelman. Roy Doty Adventures in Television Jay Lynch and I had an interesting conversation with long-time cartoonist Roy Doty. (Doty has been drawing the "Wordless Workshop" feature for over 50 years, originally appearing in Popular Science magazine.) Lynch started asking Doty about an early children's show he starred in on the Dumont network back in the Stone Age of Television. Doty explained how he got involved in television. It started with an appearance on an early Ernie Kovacs TV show to promote a children's book. It was live television. Kovacs and Doty improvised a children's story on air with Kovacs supplying the words and Doty filling in the cartoon illustrations. The camera was trained on Doty's sketchpad the whole time and Kovacs was unable to see what he was drawing. Doty interpreted each line of the story with the most risque sketches he could imagine, starting with the opening line of "Once upon a time there were two fairies." The audience howled with laughter. After the show was over, Kovacs took a good look at Doty's sketches and he howled with laughter,too. Doty was soon a semi-regular on Kovacs' show and this led to Dumont offering him "The Roy Doty Show" where he would draw cartoon characters and make up (non-risque) stories for the kids. He mentioned another "star" of early Dumont network kid's shows was John Gnagy who had a "learn to draw" art instruction show that lasted into the 1960s.
******* Snapshot IX Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman is well-known for his award-winning graphic novel Maus, his New Yorker covers and his recent cartoon meditation on the 9/11 tragedy, In The Shadow of No Towers. He is almost equally well-known as an unrepentant chain smoker. Oftentimes, he will be allowed to smoke while giving a speech in an otherwise nonsmoking venue. This time, the OSU officials had actually erected an oversize circus tent in the courtyard behind the hotel to accommodate him. The only problem was the weather had turned wintry cold and a speech presented outside became impractical. Instead of canceling the speech altogether, Spiegelman compromised by chewing nicotine gum so that the show could go on indoors. (Afterwards, he rushed outside for a few quick smokes.) Spiegelman is always an entertaining speaker and was probably the most famous cartoonist at the Festival. In New York, he is a bonafide celebrity - appearing at book fairs, on television and in lecture halls regularly. He showed a series of controversial New Yorker covers (like an Easter-themed
Easter bunny on a crucifix) and discussed the reactions that each received.
Later, Spiegelman described how traumatized he was by the destruction of
the World Trade Center on 9/11. It literally happened in his own neighborhood.
For a man who had been haunted by his father's tales of the Holocaust, here
was his own threat of a world being destroyed. Spiegelman's reaction was
In The Shadow of No Towers which the New York Times Book Review just
picked as one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2004. ******* |
Suzanne Soled, Jim Borgman.
Wexner Center, home of the OSU Cartoon Research Library and Gallery.
On day 2 of the fest, Joel Pett expounds.
Bruce Chrislip, who provided the notes in the sidebar to the left.
Maus author Art Spiegelman signs his latest work, "In The Shadow of No Towers."
Craig Boldman, Frank Pauer.
Must be dinner time -- everybody's dressed up. Frank Pauer, Ed Black, Tony Cochran, Vickie Cochran, Steve Boreman, Julie Boreman.
Comics historian and commentator R.C. Harvey with Bob Bindig in an out-of-sequence snapshot.
Mike Jantze, R.C. Harvey.
Polly Keener and Ed Black with their raffle loot.
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