Sorting Some Things Out

Yes I actually took a weekday off from blogging yesterday. Were you lonely? Did you miss me?

I converted CoreyBlake.com into the current blog format back in April 2008. For a while, I mostly blogged on a “whenever” schedule (sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes a few times a month). But thanks to the encouragement of my friend and coach Cindy Marie Jenkins, I committed to blogging Monday through Friday. Since November 2010 that’s just what I’ve done (OK, with the exception of a couple days off for Thanksgiving in November 2010, the lost week in January 2011 from a computer crash, and yesterday). A little over a year isn’t really that long, but for the Internet, I think it’s worth mentioning.

If you follow this site, you know that a good percentage of my blogging shifted to covering comic books, graphic novels and the like. My ongoing work with Dig Comics inspired a new direction in my career(s) that has included comics punditry, journalism, consulting and generally spreading the good word of sequential art in its myriad forms. It’s an area that continues to fascinate me. So I’m creating a new site/blog that will be dedicated to what I’ve been doing in that realm here and more. Right now, it looks to be on track for a February 1st launch. I’m very excited and have lots of ideas for the site’s future. I’m starting at what I’m hoping is a manageable level and hope to build up as I’m able. So as I continue to work behind-the-scenes on that, comics coverage here at CoreyBlake.com will take a breather and then resume at the new site next month.

Meanwhile, my performing with the comedy troupe Magic Meathands continues. We do fully improvised shows in and around Los Angeles, and also do community outreach shows for audiences that aren’t able to come to us. I perform with them every chance I get and am also running their blog, which generally updates every Monday. In between posts about upcoming shows (we perform at least 3 times a month), I’m hoping to start spotlighting members, some of the groups that do shows with us, and some of the non-profit organizations that invite us to do shows for them.

Earlier this month, I also launched something for music fans. Ten on the Tenth had a great first month for an idea that popped in my head 5 days before it went live. Based on some feedback I’ve gotten, I’ll be tinkering it a little for February. If you missed it, how it works is I announce a theme (January was “new”) and then on the 10th of every month, people post their list of 10 songs within that theme. Watch for February’s theme to be announced around the 8th.

So with all of that (and more ideas still percolating), what happens with CoreyBlake.com? The frequency of blogging here will probably drop to two to three times a week so I can juggle the other stuff. There will be some self-promotion but that gets boring (for me too), so I’ll also talk about things that catch my eye, and maybe getting back to some of the silly blogging I was trying out in 2008. Otherwise, we’ll just have to see what catches people’s attention. Heck, I’ll even take requests. If you’d like to see me blog about something, let me know.

I’m excited to see where all of this will lead. If you’re still reading, thank you very much for being so interested in what I’m doing. I stopped reading after the first paragraph, so kudos to you.

Friday is Brought to You by Stranded Kitteh

What Movie Should We See This Weekend?

We’re going to the cinema to see a motion picture this weekend. Maybe we’ll even see a talkie.

So tell me All Knowing Internets, what’s good? What’s worth seeing that’s in theaters right now, this upcoming second weekend of 2012?

A big Hollywood blockbuster? An indie film? A Hollywood blockbuster masquerading as an indie film? A foreign film? An indie foreign film? A Hollywood blockbuster masquerading as an indie foreign film? A documentary? An indie documentary masquerading as a Bollywood film? Porn?

Most compelling argument wins the priceless respect of your peers.

New Carly Simon bio book is pretty bad actually

I don’t talk about this on here too much but I am a big sucker for singer-songwriters from the early 1970s. I love that music. Well, there’s a new biography that just came out about Carly Simon called More Room in a Broken Heart: The True Adventures of Carly Simon. And… it’s got some problems. Plagiarism, messed up facts, lazy writing, rushed to print. I blogged about it on my secret and long neglected singer-songwriter blog here and here. If you’re a Carly Simon fan like me, I would instead highly recommend getting Sheila Weller’s Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – And the Journey of a Generation, which was made with Carly’s cooperation and is apparently being made into a movie.

(Back to comics soon! I promise! It’s been a wacky week.)

Jump Start 2012 with Improv Comedy!

Get it? “Jump start”? Jump Start? Huh?

Well if you don’t get it now, you will this Saturday night, 8 PM, at the Mary Pickford Studio when Jump Start starts off a two-fer night of fully improvised comedy, followed by us (the Magic Meathands, silly!). Tickets are $7 ($3 for 12 and under).

Find out more about the show on Facebook. And while you’re over there, why not Like the Magic Meathands Facebook page. Then you’ll see all of our show invites, get special status updates fresh from the Meathand factory, and meet and interact with other fans as well as some of the Meathands themselves!

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Something for Music Fans: Ten on the Tenth

If you love music, sharing it and discovering it, you should head over to Ten on the Tenth. Every 10th of the month, I’ll throw out a theme and then you have 24 hours to post 10 songs you feel fit within that theme. Any musical genre, any variety. Check it out, it starts tomorrow! There’s also a Facebook page.

A bunch of things inspired this, but a few things in particular seemed to jump start it. The classic rock/album rock Los Angeles radio station 100.3 The Sound does a set of ten songs from a particular year every 10:00 AM and PM, which they call 10@10. It’s always fun to see what they pick. Then my friend Paul Bushman was a guest DJ for the free form KXLU 88.9 FM because he was such a generous donator to the Loyola Marymount-based station. He brought in a set of songs built around his own theme. Then another friend, Bill Faure, sent me a mix CD of songs covered by Carly Simon. All of the songs were covers of songs written by men in her life. Then yet another friend Glenn Blakeslee set up A Day of Sunsets, where people from all over the world come together once a month to share photos of their local sunset. All of these things seemed to eventually coalesce in my head to create Ten on the Tenth, a fun interactive game for music lovers to come together once a month. I’m very curious to see the turnout and the creative songs picked for our first theme.

This Friday is Brought to You by Sun Bathing Kitteh

Show tonight!

British Cartoonist Legend Ronald Searle Dies at 91

St. Trinian's: The Entire Appalling Business

“Did I do all that?” asked Ronald Searle in an interview with Channel 4 News last year, reflecting on his immense body of work. “I must’ve been a maniac.”

Searle, who created the popular St. Trinian’s, died in his sleep during the night of last Friday, December 30. He was 91 years old.

The St. Trinian’s cartoons, first growing to prominence in the late 1940s, satirized British boarding schools by depicting subversive and naughty, at times criminally so, school girls. They inspired a series of movies in the ’50s and ’60s, and a recent relaunch. But perhaps more significantly, they catapulted Searle onto a national and even international stage, as he went on to illustrate books, such as the popular Molesworth series by Geoffrey Willans; magazines like Life, The New Yorker and Punch; travel and poetry books; advertisements; and more. His immense output influenced hundreds of future artists, including Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Pat Oliphant (Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist) and Richard Thompson (Cul de Sac).

In the Jungle - Prisoners Cutting Into the Mountain near Konyu, Thai-Burma Railway, June 1943 (Imperial War Museum)

More amazing than all of that is Searle’s World War II experience, which established him as a fearless artist and chronicler. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers, where he was stationed in Singapore until it was overtaken by the Japanese in late 1941. Searle became a prisoner of war, where he was eventually shipped to Burma as forced labor on the Death Railway. Over 60,000 Allied POWs worked on the project, with 16,000 dying in the process (6,000 of them British soldiers), in addition to some 200,000 Asian laborers with about 90,000 dying. The jungle was a breading ground for cholera, and the harsh conditions and poor treatment left those that didn’t die malnourished, sick and near-death. Over the four years as a POW, Searle’s weight dropped to 85 pounds or less, he contracted malaria (25 times!), dengue fever, beriberi and suffered from a tropical ulcer that ate his ankle to the bone and some skin condition that covered his body in a festering crust. He was also subjected to beatings and even a guard’s pick axe in his back. Through it all, he kept drawing to capture the horrors he witnessed. Some 300 illustrations were created and hidden away under the mattresses of dead cholera victims and other places that guards wouldn’t touch. Discovery would’ve resulted in decapitation.

Following his liberation at the end of World War II, some of this work was published but it was apparently “too soon” for readers at the time. However, To the Kwai – and Back: War Drawings 1939-1945, published in 1986 by Souvenir Press, fared better. Most of the illustrations are also displayed in the Imperial War Museum in London.

In the ’70s, he helped his wife Monica, who was going through intense chemotherapy treatment for an aggressive breast cancer, by drawing “romantic and perfect” cartoons of Monica as Mrs. Mole, a blissful cartoon character content at home. Each time his wife received a treatment, he would give her a new drawing of hope for what the future could hold. 47 were made in all. The two ended up having 50 long years together. She died this past July. Last October, following one of her final wishes, Searle published for the first time the illustrations he had made for her. Les Trés Riches Heures de Mrs. Mole was released in Europe in support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Following his death, his family released the following statement earlier this week: “Ronald William Fordham Searle, born 3 March 1920, passed away peacefully in his sleep, after a short illness, with his children, Kate and John, and his grandson, Daniel, beside him, on 30 December 2011 in Draguignan, France. He requested a private cremation with no fuss and no flowers.”

Nucleus just east of Los Angeles has a gallery exhibit on Ronald Searle scheduled to begin this Saturday, January 7, with an opening reception from 7 to 10 PM. The exhibit closes Sunday, January 29.

Year in Review: Digital Comics are Really Here

ComiXology leads digital revolution

While comic book stores were struggling (and in some cases closing) through much of 2011, the other major distribution outlet for comic books and graphic novels also faced a tough time. Book stores became a major outlet in the 2000s, primarily due to the manga explosion that brought a whole new audience back to sequential art in the United States. But with the dominance of Amazon.com and the rise of digital e-readers, book stores were forced to evolve. Unfortunately Borders, the second largest US book store chain and the first to usher in manga to American readers, failed to do so in time and went into bankruptcy this year and caused a ripple effect throughout the comics industry.

For some comics publishers, the effect was minimal, as previous payment issues with Borders caused some to shift their business away from them before the bankruptcy was announced. But others felt it more strongly, such as Los Angeles-based Tokyopop, the second largest manga publisher in the United States. In the beginning of the year, Borders stopped paying its vendors in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. This resulted in orders getting cut, and with Borders being Tokyopop’s largest customer account, income was severely damaged. Layoffs at Tokypop followed. Despite the late-entry hit manga Hetalia: Axis Powers, it couldn’t reverse the damage of a closing Borders, online piracy (and a digital strategy that amounted to too little too late), and the under-performing Priest feature film. By May, Tokyopop was holding a garage sale to empty out their LA offices. With their termination of US publishing, licenses were canceled, leaving a good number of manga series unfinished. It’s difficult to know how many casual readers of those series drifted away from reading manga and comics entirely after their favorite manga simply stopped coming out. In October, Tokyopop founder Stu Levy revealed that he is “continuing to explore any and all opportunities to relaunch the manga publishing operations” but it will require him having to renegotiate contracts with Japanese publishers. In the meantime, Tokyopop remains as a modest web-newsletter about Asian pop culture, in a partnership with GeekChicDaily.

Viz blazes own path, offers digital subscriptions to Shonen Jump Alpha

It was clear that another distribution outlet was needed, and fortunately one has been steadily growing over the last two years. Digital comics allow people to read print comics and manga on the web or mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, Kindle and Nook. Companies have been popping up to provide publishers with the service of configuring their comics to the digital landscape and selling them on these devices. The digital distributor ComiXology has pulled ahead as the clear industry leader, with an exclusive partnership with DC Comics and partnerships with almost every other major comics publisher and many smaller ones too. Other prominent digital distributors are Graphicly, with their focus on community-building, and iVerse Media’s Comics+. Some publishers have chosen to build their own in-house digital distribution systems, such as Dark Horse Digital and Viz Manga. Some publishers are even shifting entirely to digital or publishing digitally first, mimicking the successful web-comics model of building an audience to support print releases.

Most significant in 2011 is the near industry-wide move by comics and manga publishers to ramp up their digital output. This was most notable in numerous announcements by publishers to release digital and print versions simultaneously (frequently called “day-and-date”). Prior to this, digital comics were released erratically, sometimes as far out as 6 months after the print version, seriously undermining the ability of digital to be taken as a serious method for consumers to become engaged in specific titles. The brand new Kindle Fire tablet/e-reader, which had huge sales for the holidays, has available an exclusive set of 100 DC Comics graphic novels, along with a free, pre-loaded Comics by ComiXology app.

Before a lot of these digital announcements were made (and when most digital comics were only available through the iPad and iPhone), digital comics were showing significant growth as sales doubled for the first half of 2011. Prior to that, digital comics sales were estimated at $6 to $8 million for 2010. Print sales for the North American comic book industry were estimated at under $420 million for 2010. While still only a fraction of print, digital is still extremely young with immense potential to reach new and lapsed readers.

Improvisers’ New Years Resolution: To Make You Laugh

If we make you laugh in 2012, we’ll have done our job. So we can do this one of two ways. Either you can come to one of our shows and enjoy a fully-improvised hour of comedy based on your suggestions, or we can follow you home from work one night and do a show in your living room. Look, I’m not threatening you, but one way might leave you with a broken TV. Not due to any violence on our part, we’re just kind of clumsy.

So what will it be? You can think it over. No need to rush into a decision. After all, you’ve got three opportunities this month to save your coffee table.

Here are the details of our first shows of 2012, straight from the freshly-updated Upcoming Shows page:

M.i.’s Westside Comedy Comedy Theater, Friday, January 6th
also featuring The Waterbrains and Mission: IMPROVable
Featured Meathands: TBA
Westside Comedy Theater
1323-A Third Street Promenade (in alley between 3rd and 4th Street)
Santa Monica, CA 90401
8:00pm; Admission $10; Rated:
Show Rating: Late Night

Family-Friendly Comedy Night, Saturday, January 14th
with special guest Jump Start Comedy Improv!
Featured Meathands: TBA
Mary Pickford Studio
8885 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 559-8868
8:00pm; Admission $7 ($3 for kids 12 & under); Rated:
Show Rating: Network Television

Tag Team Comedy, Saturday, January 21st
with special guest!
Featured Meathands: TBA
Mary Pickford Studio
8885 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 287-3700
8:00pm; Admission $7; Rated:
Show Rating: Late Night

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.