Month: March 2011

Someone make this: Searchable database of comic strips in major newspapers throughout history

I was hoping to find something like this but for the Boston Globe instead of The Oregonian (scan from Jonathan Shipley's Writer's Desk blog)

I was trying to figure out what comic strips were running in The Boston Globe when I started reading the comics section as a young lad. I know there was Garfield, probably the Amazing Spider-Man strip, Peanuts most likely, For Better or For Worse probably, but I can’t really remember what else. I think I started regularly reading the comics pages just before Calvin and Hobbes started, as I remember that being “the new strip”. So probably around 1984? I would love to have that information.

I was hoping I could find a scan of a random page from the ’80s to help refresh my memory. You can find everything online, so I figured this might take some clever Googling but should be doable. Well, apparently not. (Or I’m just not a very good Googler.) I did an image search at “the Google” for said random scan but no such luck. Then I did a search of all the internets, every single one of them, hoping for some ugly GeoCities fan site created by an obsessive-compulsive Globe reader who had cataloged every comics page, preferably using HTML tables and yellow font on a gaudy background. Maybe a dancing Calvin & Hobbes gif to really seal the deal? Well, GeoCities is gone, so maybe it took this hypothetical site with it. Once again, no such luck.

So this got me thinking. This is something that should be out there. All of the major newspapers with comics sections: The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune – it would be a great historical resource to know which strips ran in which papers when and for how long. (Last night on Twitter, I mistakenly included the New York Times in my initial wish list, but they don’t have a comics section.) Getting smaller papers would be great too but at least the major papers initially. And this information undoubtedly exists. The syndicates surely have extensive records of this information and more, although they probably have little motivation to provide it. So it will likely fall to the people to collect this information. So come on, everyone, let’s head to our local library‘s microfiche and get this going!

It’s MS Awareness Week: MS = 1 day at a time #msequals

Hey everybody! Multiple sclerosis is a thing that exists!

There, now you’re aware. That wasn’t so hard. Problem solved!

Huh. Probably should’ve done that sooner.

Wait… I think multiple sclerosis is still a problem. And I think there are people that may not have read this yet that don’t know about MS. I guess I’m not done after all.

As I’ve shared in the past, my wife Nahleen was diagnosed with MS over 8 years ago. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that damages the ability of the body’s nerve cells in the brain and spinal chord to communicate with each other. This leads to a variety of symptoms, usually different for each person, that can include coordination and balance problems, muscle weakness, fatigue, pain, speech difficulties, cognitive lapses and other fun stuff. The severity can vary wildly but generally (but not always) gets gradually worse over time. The cause is unknown. There is no cure.

The National MS Society is trying to change that. They do amazing work to raise money for research and treatment. They also organize workshops, seminars and other activities to help people live with this disease. They have been a great resource for us and their proactive involvement has helped produce the first oral medication for MS, Gilenya, which Nahleen started taking a few weeks ago.

Before that, Nahleen treated her MS with one of four self-injected medications. Yes, self-injected involves stabbing oneself with a syringe deep enough to get between the fat layer and muscle. Depending on the type of medication, this is done either daily, every other day, three times a week, or once a week. The worst thing in the world? No. But the process was not a good time. Pre-medication (Tylenol for the pain and numbing of the injection site with ice), preparation, injection, clean-up. Then there are all sorts of awesome side effects for each version. For Nahleen, she experienced flu-like symptoms like a fever (she would usually wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night after each injection), muscle aches, fatique, depression (Hey, aren’t these some of the symptoms for MS? Why yes, yes they are.), and injection site reactions (bruising, swelling). Oh yeah, and it hurts. Sometimes barely at all, but sometimes quite a bit.

So yeah, switching to a pill kind of feels like winning the lottery. Side effects are minimal to nothing so far. (Although we might need the real lottery to pay for it.)

If that’s all the National MS Society did, I would love them forever, but they do so much more. Like organizing Walk MS events, which we usually do (but sadly not this year), Bike MS, and MS Awareness Week, where they’re asking what MS means to people. You can post your answer at that last link, or tweet including the hashtag #msequals, make a video on YouTube or post a blog like I’m doing.

My answer is in the title of this blog. MS = 1 day at a time. One thing I had to abandon was what I expected to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, forever. Every day is different for Nahleen, and I have to be willing to allow for a drastic or slight change of plans. Whether it’s about grocery shopping tomorrow, flying back east to visit our families this summer, or great big life decisions and dreams 5-10 years from now, I have to be able to let them go. Sure, it can make RSVP’ing for birthday parties challenging, but we’ve found that most of our friends understand. It takes being patient, forgiving and willing to… improvise. Why yes, maybe there’s something to those improv comedy shows I do with the Magic Meathands that help me accept and adjust. Even comic books offer a way to look at life that can help in dealing with all of this. Comics, or sequential art, break up life into snapshots or moments of time. Appreciating that moment, within and without the context of the moments (and life) around it, give me a gratitude for the times Nahleen and I have together regardless of whether it was the big date we were “supposed” to have, or a quiet and careful night at home.

Nahleen and I may not be doing Walk MS this year, but we would still love to help raise money for the National MS Society. We’d like to refer you to two Walkers this year, and hope you will consider donating to them. Michelle Hazan is a friend of ours and has been on our Walk MS team for several years now. Through the magic of Twitter, I met Angelina Fuller (@Symph0ny) who is doing her very first Walk MS this year. It would be amazing if our people could help them reach their goals.

Also, if you’re in the west LA area around lunchtime (12-2 PM), there will be a different food truck camped out at the National MS Society Southern California office at 2440 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles 90046 each day of the week, to celebrate MS Awareness Week. 10% of sales goes to the National MS Society. Naan Stop and The Surfer Taco trucks were there Monday, yesterday saw Cali Cuisine (aka the Calitruck), and today will have three trucks hanging out in the So Cal office parking lot: Don Chow’s Tacos, White Rabbit, and the Calitruck! I heard there was a 45-minute wait yesterday with only one truck there, so the lines should be moving faster today. Check out the Facebook page for Walk MS SoCal & Nevada for tomorrow and Friday’s food trucks, and to hear more about their efforts to fight MS.

Voices From Chornobyl – suddenly way too relevant

Next month marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster. And here we are days after the terrifying earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan that has resulted in an unstable situation at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

It’s true that the two incidents do not have a direct 1:1 correlation. The nuclear power plant industry learned from that previous horrible incident but there’s still so much that we don’t know about this method of powering electricity. And there are still a lot of disturbing parallels between April 26, 1986, and the days and weeks that followed, and what is happening now.

“This is for thousands of years.”

I’ve seen some people dismiss the warnings and concerns with figures of low death counts from nuclear incidents. But our attention should not be determined by loss of life. The quality of life in Chernobyl was irreversibly changed, just as it is being changed forever in Japan.

In 2008, I served as associate producer for the above short demo of a dramatization by Cindy Marie Jenkins of a book of interviews of Chernobyl survivors. It’s called Voices from Chornobyl. If this video captures 1/10th of the heartbreak the people of Chernobyl went through then, or that the people of Japan are going through now, and gets you or someone you forward this on to, to consider helping the people of either region in the ongoing aftermath, I’ll feel like maybe I did something right.

Smiles for Japan: $25 art commissions by manga artist Nina Matsumoto will send 100% to Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund (click image for more info)

To fit in the comics side of me, manga artists in Japan have been expressing their support and encouragement through a wonderful series of art with a “Smiles for Japan” theme. Robot 6 has links to work by popular creators like Takehiko Inoue (Vagabond), Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), Naoki Urasawa (20th Century Boys), Kanata Konami (Chi’s Sweet Home), Arina Tanemura (The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross), Nina Matsumoto (Yokaiden) and more. (If only I could read Japanese.)

Also, Meltdown Comics (7522 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046) is holding an art auction called We Heart Japan this Thursday, March 17, 8 PM – 11 PM, with 100% of proceeds going to the Japan NGO Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund. The event was organized by anime voice actor Stephanie Sheh (Naruto) and comic book artist/graphic designer Pinguino Kolb.

To learn more about the ongoing Voices From Chornobyl project, please visit their website.

To donate to the Red Cross and their efforts to help the Japanese Red Cross respond to the earthquake/tsunami disaster, please visit their website.

And to get activisty for a moment: To learn more about the risks of nuclear power, visit NukeFree.org.

(For detail freaks like myself, the alternate spelling of Chernobyl in the title is a more accurate English spelling of the original Ukrainian name of the city.)

Read This: Scenes From An Impending Marriage

I firmly believe there’s a comic book or graphic novel for everyone. Yes, there’s even a comic for soon-to-be newlyweds in the form of Scenes from an Impending Marriage: A Prenuptial Memoir by Adrian Tomine (published by Drawn & Quarterly).

This little book is a quick read but endlessly enjoyable. Anybody who has gotten married, no matter how smooth or not it went, will relate. The memoir goes through a number of brief anecdotes of writer/artist Adrian and his fiancée Sarah Brennan going through all of the planning stages of putting together a wedding. It stays light and humorous instead of getting overwhelmed with family drama. And there are occasional single-panel cartoons that provide a great running gag.

The author and now-wife were interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered recently and their really quite adorable.

This would make a great wedding present. Or if you’re the one getting married, you can even add it to your Amazon.com wedding registry.

Here’s Drawn & Quarterly’s write-up (and the blurb on the back cover):

Scenes from an Impending Marriage

Adrian Tomine

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED
to witness the hilarious true story of one couple’s long march to the altar. Best known for his cover illustrations for The New Yorker and for the critically–acclaimed graphic novel Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine now opens the pages of his private sketchbook to reveal a witty, intimate account of the heady months prior to getting married. Through a series of comic vignettes, Tomine captures the amusing, taxing, and often absurd process of planning a wedding, as well as the peculiar characters and situations that he and his fiancée encounter along the way. Filled with incisive humor, keen observations, and unabashed tenderness, Scenes from an Impending Marriage is a sweet-natured document of the little moments leading up to the big day.

Hardcover, 4.25 x 5.5, black and white, 56 pages

ISBN: 9781770460348

$9.95 US / $10.50 CDN

Here’s a page from the preview posted at NPR to give you a taste.

Gabby’s Good Luck Minute 2

Magic Meathands Original video #10!

Wrapping up what turned into sketch comedy week here at CoreyBlake.com central, we’ve now got the latest original video from the Magic Meathands! Nikki Turner wrote and directed a sequel to her first Gabby’s Good Luck Minute (although I think you’ll be able to manage without seeing the original). I play the main guest for the show and also do the announcer voice. Kathie Bostian returns as Gabby, and there’s also Shane Boroomand, Eric Ho, new Meathand Seth Rotkin, and a guest appearance by non-Meathand Matt Lundin. Kevin Callahan is present too, thanks to a flashback to Gabby part 1.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions but I think Gabby might be cursed.

Reminder: We’ve got a live show Saturday night at the The Spot Café in Culver City! 8 PM, $7 for 2 improv comedy groups including us!

Archives:
Magic Meathands Original video #9: Catnip
Magic Meathands Original video #8: Pheel Good
Magic Meathands Original video #7: Corey vs. His Nemesis
Magic Meathands Original video #6: Gabby’s Good Luck Minute
Magic Meathands Original video #5: Gotcha
Magic Meathands Original video #4: ManCoaster
Magic Meathands Original video #3: Pants – A Nightmare
Magic Meathands Original video #2: Fun and Games
Magic Meathands Original video #1: Eddie the Enforcer

Subscribe to the Magic Meathands YouTube channel.

The 3rd Floor: LA audio sketches now online

Apparently it’s sketch comedy flashback week.

After posting an old Foe Pa video on Monday, now the internet has been hit with classic audio sketches from The 3rd Floor: LA on Vimeo.

I was in this group before Foe Pa. I have a terrible memory unless it has to do with comic books or James Taylor, but I think this would’ve been around 2002-2003. One of the members Mari Levitan saw me perform in the Theater That Shall Not Be Named and asked that I audition, since the group was looking for new members. I did and in a lapse of judgment, they welcomed me to The 3rd Floor: LA. The group was the Los Angeles branch of the Portland-based sketch group The 3rd Floor, which seems to still be going strong. I had great fun with the group, even if I usually felt out-classed and overwhelmed. We performed at sketch comedy festivals in Chicago and San Francisco, and had several successful shows here in Los Angeles. It’s actually where this sketch originated. (It started as a monologue I wrote to audition for the group. There was no speedo used then; our Foe Pa guest director at the time suggested we add it.) While we all contributed material, the primary writer was Joe Douglass, who was part of the original Third Floor. I still love his writing – some weird mix of brash and coy, smart and blunt. He’s since moved on to TV news, which seems like some kind of crime against humanity, but no surprise he’s good at that too. Fortunately Mari is still doing comedy. She recently did a show with Hit and Run: Musical Improv at the Westside Comedy Theater. I think the only other member of the group that I’ve managed to semi-keep in touch with (thanks to Facebook) is Shannon O’Connor, who I think still works in animation (and drew this awesome cartoon of me during one of our rehearsals).

Anyway, The 3rd Floor: LA used audio sketches in our live shows (partly to buy us time to do costume and set changes). The first five that have been posted were created before I joined the group, so I’m not in any of them but you should listen to them anyway. Hopefully some stuff with me will pop up sooner or later (although I honestly don’t know if there’s all that much recorded stuff with me in it).

The Remedy (Audio Sketch) from The 3rd Floor: Los Angeles on Vimeo.

Satchmo (Audio Sketch) from The 3rd Floor: Los Angeles on Vimeo.

Comic Book Sales – 10 Years of Stagnation

The worst-selling best-selling comic of all time? Click to read ICv2's analysis of comics sales for February

Sales numbers for the comic book direct market in the month of February have been released and they’re getting the monthly armchair analysis (notably, at ICv2 and ComiChron). The direct market, if you don’t know, is essentially the comic book stores, specialty shops and book stores serviced by Diamond Comics Distributors.

The big eye-catching headline is that the highest selling comic book for February is the weakest top-seller in 10 years, possibly ever. DC Comics‘ Green Lantern #62 by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke shipped only an estimated 71,500 copies. For a bit of context, February 2006‘s top seller moved over 140,000 copies. As ComiChron points out, Green Lantern in the 1960s was selling over 200,000 copies a month. Comics have also sold in the millions per month.

So is the end nigh? After January’s poor showing, and now this, there’s certainly plenty of hand-wringing and window jumping. It’s easy to draw that conclusion, but as both sites point out, the entire month’s sales are actually just barely up. That’s due to a modestly better sales through the mid-list and lower selling comics, or the long tail. Without those sales, the industry would indeed be hurting due to a lack of breakout hits and lackluster ordering of the top 100 comics. A dive was also averted due to high priced graphic novels sold in February, such as the Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne deluxe hardcover by Grant Morrison and various artists, with a suggested price of $29.99.

There are lots of factors at play here. DC Comics has rolled back their cover prices to $2.99. The first quarter is traditionally weaker. Diamond started shipping comics on Tuesday for a Wednesday on-sale date, and the transition threw off some orders.

While it seems like comics sale are constantly falling and that this is an all-new low, I think the notable observation made is that comics sales are largely where they were 10 years ago. In this economy, that’s a victory. But then you consider that 10 years ago, comic stores had nowhere near as many resources. These newer resources should theoretically be pulling in customers. Graphic novels and manga in book stores and libraries were just ramping up ten years ago. The first X-Men movie had arrived with much enthusiasm but the huge success of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Batman Begins and a slew of other comic book adaptations were just around the corner. During the decade, web comics would continue to expand and diversify, becoming a (more) accepted form of syndication and distribution. And digital comics on iPhones, iPads, Playstation PSPs, Androids, on the web and elsewhere were beyond most people’s imagination and are now a quickly growing infant. Educators at libraries and schools have embraced comics as literacy tools and are helping their reach increase. This decade has started with a mass awareness and enthusiasm of comics that has never been higher.

And yet for comics stores, it’s like none of the progress from the last 10-15 years has even happened. All of these elements should serve as feeders to comic book stores. A percentage of readers from each of these places would theoretically be curious to more fully dive in to this world, and the comic book store is the best place to go. Or it’s supposed to be. Maybe it isn’t the best place. Or maybe it isn’t the most welcoming place for people coming from those other places. Or maybe we’re losing too many readers from old age or dissatisfaction and the new readers are causing us to break even. If that’s the case, I guess we get credit for stopping the hemorrhaging.

Diamond is trying to tie in the digital element but it’s criticized as inconvenient and counter-intuitive to the instant gratification of the digital world. Why would someone drive to a comic book store to buy a code that they use to download something to their device of choice when they can just do the same thing without driving anywhere either illegally or by waiting a month? Good question. But at least they’re trying. That same experimentation (or, preferably, better experimentation) should be applied to book stores, schools, libraries, movie theaters, TV, and anywhere else someone might discover that comics can be as good a way to be entertained as any other form of entertainment.

Diamond and its network of independent comic stores have a chance to turn the halted hemorrhaging into real growth. While there are a few stores out there that are doing what they can on their own, a series of coordinated efforts is what is needed. And if they don’t do it, one of those feeders will do it instead and become the dominant space in the industry. Comics aren’t going anywhere. It’s how you get them and how they get to you that is changing.

Funnies for your Families

This Saturday night, I’m performing with the Magic Meathands for a show of totally improvised comedy based on your suggestions. The only catch is you have to actually be there to give suggestions and laugh. I know, we’re kind of strict.

We do this show every second Saturday of the month! And once again we’re joined by the improv group Jump Start! They’ll open for us at 8 PM and then we’ll take the stage around 9 PM. But get there early (like 7:30 or 7:45) because the place fills up fast! Tickets are $10 $7 for the whole night and there’s also yummy food you can buy from The Spot Cafe.

You can check out the details here.

Abraham Lincoln: Four Scores in Seven Years

It’s a Foe Pa Flashback!

About 5 years ago, back when we were all still using MySpace, I was a member of the sketch comedy group Foe Pa. This weekend, some of us had a mini-reunion when we attended the surprise birthday party for fellow Foe Pa’er Yuri Lowenthal, who has gone on to much-deserved success as a voice-over artist (Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto, Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, Superman in Legion of Super-Heroes, the Prince in the Prince of Persia video game, Iceman in Wolverine and the X-Men and tons of others). We got to reminiscing about the Foe Pa days, and Yuri pointed out how we were doing Abraham Lincoln action mash-ups years before he was turned into a Vampire Slayer or whatever else those up and coming whipper snappers are doing nowadays.

And then in yesterday’s sketch meeting with the Magic Meathands, me playing Abraham Lincoln randomly came up again. That’s just too much coincidence, so here it is again. Vintage 2006 sketch comedy:

Foe Pa was probably best remembered for our live sketch comedy shows. We would do a completely brand new show every month or two, with completely new sketches top to bottom. Eventually we started shooting some of the sketches that we thought could transition to the interwebs, and then started writing some exclusively for video. Some we played during our shows. This one was written by me, and I played the part of Abraham Lincoln. Yuri did the trailer guy voice-over, and I think he might’ve directed this as well, if I remember right. He also played one of the henchmen. Zena Leigh and Aaron Lyons played the other two. I originally imagined this animated, but we didn’t know any animators that we thought we could convince to do this for free.

There are a few really funny sketches that I think still hold up from those days that remain unfilmed. Kind of a shame. Maybe one day…

For more Foe Pa sketches and other videos from the archives, check out the Video Vault.

Boom! Kids expands to all-ages kaboom! with Peanuts

kaboom! launches with Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown

Los Angeles comics publisher Boom! Studios has been releasing info on their re-branded Boom! Kids imprint this and last week, and the big news is the March release of the first Peanuts original graphic novel Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown as the debut title of kaboom! (formerly teased as Boom! Kids 2.0). (Click on the image to the right for a preview, which immediately sold me on the previously unthinkable idea of buying something Peanuts-related that wasn’t directly written and illustrated by the late Charles Schulz.)

Not to be confused with the Mexican comic book studio ¡Ka-Boom! Estudio or the short-lived 1990s comic book series by Jeph Loeb and Jeff Matsuda called Kaboom or the Texas comic book store KABOOM Comics or the Virginia Beach comic book store Kaboom Collectibles or the Australian comic book store Kaboom! Comics, Boom’s kaboom! will also include Snarked! by Roger Langridge, who recently wrapped up an excellent run creating The Muppet Show Comic Book, as well as a licensed comic based on the PBS Kids animated series Word Girl, and a French Star Wars parody imported as Space Warped. The line will also retain their classic Disney comics Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Mickey Mouse and Friends, Donald Duck and Friends, and Uncle Scrooge as well as the Disney Afternoon comics DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Chip ‘n Dale’s Rescue Rangers. (Disney has decided to pull the comics based on Pixar movies such as The Incredibles, Cars and Toy Story in-house where Marvel Comics will publish Disney•Pixar Presents, a magazine currently slated to reprint the Boom!-produced stories.)

Boom! publisher Ross Richie spoke with Comic Book Resources about kaboom! and the Peanuts graphic novel, and I was struck by his explanation for why the re-named Boom! Kids. From that interview:

“We had theorized for a while that we need to change it up for two reasons: one, we were seeing adults apologizing at conventions for buying the kids’ comics for themselves, and we wanted to remove this barrier. Seeing women in their 20s at Emerald City Comicon say, ‘I know the Incredibles comic book is made for kids, but it looks awesome and I love the art and I’m buying it anyway’ — that ain’t right. Let’s remove the perceived barrier,” Richie explained.

“We also knew on the other end that kids that can buy with their own dollars — let’s say 8 year olds for instance — didn’t consider themselves kids, so they were not sparking to the name,” he continued. “A lot of our content is great for this age group, so let’s get rid of that barrier.

“And through the process, what we ended up seeing was that our organic desire as a publisher hewed more towards being ‘all ages’ than a strict ‘kids’ publisher. So why not reflect that? Why not show everyone that our focus is shifting and changing?

I think that realization and change is significant, and it’s smart of them to listen to this and act on it. Many of the strongest material for young readers is in fact enjoyable for a wider cross section of people. It’s why Pixar movies are so successful. It’s why many of the classic Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes cartoons are so timeless. They don’t just speak to a narrow demographic. (As an aside, DC Comics has been publishing Looney Tunes comics for years.)

It kind of ties in with part of a new interview conducted by colorist Chris Sotomayor (Captain America, Hulk) with comics writer Kurt Busiek (JLA/Avengers, Astro City) (via The Beat). In talking about what’s lacking in the comics industry, Busiek said, “What we’re doing wrong is that we’re putting so much of our energy trying to make comics that will keep the existing audience on board, by concentrating the thrills, the hype and the excitement in ways that make the work forbidding to newcomers. And at the same time, not doing enough outreach to new audiences.” He goes on to break down how to bring in new audiences:

The four-part mantra of how to reach a new target audience remains true: 1. Publish material they will like. 2. Publish it in a form they’ll be willing to pick up. 3. Distribute it to places they will see it. 4. Tell them it exists.

When we reach out to new audiences, we often do only one of the four — and sometimes none, and then complain that it’s not possible.

Fortunately Boom! is doing it differently (and there are others too). They get that speaking to the same narrow audience is death in the long term. There’s nothing wrong with being a cult hit or making a product for a very specific audience, but when the majority of a publishing line is developed with that approach, there can only be finite interest.

Those four steps should be plastered on every comics publishers walls.