June 6: "Post Bang" Symposium at NYU

The New York Institute for the Humanities announces "Post Bang: Comics Ten Minutes After the Big Bang," an all-day symposium taking place Friday, June 6 at NYU's Cantor Film Center (36 E. 8th Street). The free, public event runs from 11 am through 9:30 pm and is being offered in conjunction with the MoCCA Art Festival. Participants will include Lynda Barry, David Hajdu, Leonard Marcus, Gary Panter, Art Spiegelman, Mo Willems, and Douglas Wolk, among others, and the program will include a panel on children's comics including TOON Books Editorial Director Françoise Mouly. A full event schedule follows:

11 am – 12:15 pm COMICS AND CANON FORMATION will feature John Carlin (Masters of American Comics), Dan Nadel (Art Out of Time), and Rob Storr (Yale and the Venice Biennale).

1:30 – 2:45 pm COMICS AND KID’S LIT will bring together Lisa von Drasek (Bank Street College), Leonard Marcus (Minders of Make Believe), Francoise Mouly (The New Yorker), Mo Willems (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!), and Sara Varon (Sweaterweather).

3:00 – 4:15 pm COMICS AND THE LITERARY ESTABLISHMENT, featuring Hillary Chute (Harvard), David Hajdu (The Ten-Cent Plague), Jeet Heer (Walt and Skeezix), and Douglas Wolk (Reading Comics).

5:30 – 6:45 pm COMICS AND THE INTERNET features Sarah Boxer (Ultimate Blogs), Shaenon Garrity (Narbonic), Hope Larson (Gray Horses), Siva Vaidhyanathan (The Anarchist in the Library), and Kent Worcester (The Comics Studies Reader).

7:00 – 8:00 pm Raw magazine cofounder ART SPIEGELMAN (Maus, Breakdowns, In the Shadow of No Towers) in conversation with the “King of Punk Art,” GARY PANTER (Cola Madnes, Jimbo, Pee Wee’s Playhouse).

8:15 – 9:30 pm Harvard scholar Hillary Chute in conversation with one of the country’s foremost alternative cartoonists, LYNDA BARRY (Ernie Pook’s Comeek, The Good Times are Killing Me, What It Is).

Will Elder (1921-2008)

Cartoonist Will Elder died on Thursday, May 16, according to several sources including the Comics Reporter. Among his many achievements, Elder was the flagship artist of MAD's first incarnation as a satirical comic book for young readers, edited and written by Harvey Kurtzman. Elder distinguished himself with his ability to parodically mimic other cartooning styles and pack his comics panels with dense sight-gags, while hewing to Kurtzman's carefully composed page breakdowns. The Journalista! blog runs a fond reminiscence by Elder's son-in-law, Gary VandenBergh. The New York Observer and the CBC both run obituaries. The "Mad Mumblings" website includes an interview with Elder conducted around the time of the publication of a retrospective book, Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art. The artist was 86.

Amazon Spotlights TOON Books

Amazon.com's blog covers children's comics, focusing on TOON Books.

Silly Lilly is the least kinetic of the three, using a deliberately flat style and even tone to provide a primer on the four seasons. Benny and Penny, on the other hand, features two bickering mice who fight over the reality of a pirate ship. Otto’s Orange Day uses exaggeration and good-natured banter to establish its mood. All three are note-perfect for what they’re doing.

D+Q to Publish John Stanley Comics

Drawn and Quarterly announces plans to reprint several volumes worth of comics by John Stanley.

We'll be starting off with a three volume set of Stanley's Melvin Monster... While primarily know as a writer, Stanley actually wrote and drew all nine issues of this series...Next up, a three-volume set of the Stanley "Teen" comics--Thirteen going on Eighteen, Around the Block with Dunc and Loo, and Kookie... Thirteen is again almost all Stanley written and drawn and is one of the great "lost" treasures of silver age comics. Dunc and Loo and Kookie feature other artists (notably Bill Williams) finishing Stanley's layouts but still maintaining that manic quality that was a Stanley trademark.

The series will be designed by the cartoonist Seth. The "Stanley Stories" website runs examples of both Melvin Monster and Dunc and Loo.

Dark Horse Comics currently publishes a series of books reprinting Stanley's Little Lulu comics. Elsewhere, "Pappy's Golden Age" has recently posted a Nancy comic book story by Stanley.