Tezuka Gene: Light In The Darkness Exhibit

An exhibition in Tokyo featuring 35 works inspired by late Japanese comics legend Osamu Tezuka will be held throughout November. See images of all 35 pieces of art over at Mainichi Daily.

Dirty Hands wins award at the San Diego Asian Film Fest

Richael Jaeckson big in I-Ran

I really liked the film version of Persepolis which I finally saw on DVD just last month. If you watch the extras, Marjane Satrapi is a ball of kinetic energy intensely involved in every aspect of the filmmaking process.

I think everybody gravitates to the hilariously off-key version of "Eye of The Tiger", but for me the funniest scene in the movie is when young Marjane is walking down the street and she passes a gauntlet of street sellers whispering their black market music wares; mostly it's bad prog-rock but the laugh comes when one guy whispers "Richael Jaeckson."

With Great Power Comes Great...Truthiness?

In a strange, but entertaining twist that the late Steve Gerber would've loved, Stephen Colbert is running for President in the Marvel Universe. The fake rightwing demagogue from the Colbert Report (silent French T's on both words) apparently has a good rappor(t) with Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada who justifies a Colbert presidency thusly at Wired online:

Joe Quesada: Colbert is a true American hero. He's said so on TV, which means it must be true!

Certainly stranger things have happened both in comics and real world politics: In Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' legendary Watchmen, Richard Nixon was a 4-term President still presiding over the USA in 1985. And as recently as 2008 a completely unknown secessionist mayor of an Alaskan town of a mere 5,000 was elevated first to governor, then chosen as a Vice Presidential nominee for one of the two major parties. This at a time when the country had been bankrupted by her party, was engaged in two seperate wars with trouble brewing all over the globe, and her only foriegn policy experience is that on a clear day you can almost see Russia from remote Alaskan coastline.

Colbert for President, and that's the word!

THE NEW YORKER FESTIVAL

Cover by Lorenzo Mattotti

THE NEW YORKER FESTIVAL

October 3-5 2008

Here’s a reason I wish I lived nearer to NYC.
The legendary New Yorker magazine hosts an absolute feast for readers, writers, and even comics fans. Huge literary figures attending include Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, Joyce Carol Oates, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Elmore Leonard, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, Junot Diaz, , and Paul Theroux.
Also Stephen Colbert, Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, Tommy Lee Jones, Martha Plimpton, and Rage Againts The Machine’s guitarist/activist Tom Morello.

Comics fans get treated to some heavyweights too.
Saturday October 4, at 4pm you get “Drawn Together”: Lynday Barry in coversation with Matt Groening. Barry will likely be discussing her latest book an illustrated comics instructional “What It Is” as well as her forthcoming book “Nearsighted Monkey.”

But you’ll have to choose because at 4:30 the same day comes “Breakdowns: Comix 101” with Art Spiegelman. Not certain what the discussion specifically entails but Spiegelman has two new books coming out this month. One is a children’s book “Jack in a Box” and “Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&!.”

At 10 pm you get an amazingly rare chance to hear from Italian comics legend (and New Yorker contributor) Lorenzo Mattotti, alnog with Charles Burns in a discussion with Francoise Mouly. The two artists will discuss the new animated film “Fear(s) Of The Dark,” a compendium of animated shorts about phobias.
Mouly first published both Mattotti and Burns as co-editor (with partner Art Spiegelman) in RAW.

Spiegelman and Lynda Barry will also do book signings on Sunday October 5.

Plus Dawn Upshaw talks with Alex Ross!! Um, okay, not that Alex Ross, but rather the music critic and author who shares a name with the comics artist.

Things I also attend if I could: Tom Morello talks with James Surowiecki. Oliver Stone with critic David Denby (sure to cover Stone’s wacky-looking new bio-pic “W” about our country’s worst president). Stephen Colbert (from my hometown) talks with Ariel levy. Also talks with Rushdie and Murakami, and NY’s high-minded literary critic James Woods.