Kim Deitch in Minneapolis Today

Courtesy of the Comics Reporter.

hey everyone, zak sally here.

you know i send out on of these “press releases” every so often when i uh, think something stupendously awesome is hitting minneapolis: this one’s a little late, but here it is– underground comics legend Kim Deitch will be in town next week, on the 19th & 20th.

i wrote a piece on Kim for the city pages a couple years back for the city pages, upon the release of his acclaimed book “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (Pantheon).

Kim is pretty much a living legend, and certainly the “cartoonists’ cartoonist”: having begun his cartooning career damn near 40 years ago, back in the underground comics explosion of the late 60’s, Kim has consistently honed his craft to the point that he’s in the running for the title of “America’s greatest living cartoonist” (i read an interview with none other than Chris Ware where he said that he and Dan Clowes often wonder if they don’t like Kim’s work more than R. Crumb’s…).

There’s been a renaissance in reprinting Kim’s work lately, with another long novel from Pantheon (“Alias The Cat”), and a collection of his amazing mid 80’s/ 90’s work called “Shadowland”, both released in 2006. you should buy them and read them, and THEN you should write, blog, promote, or whateverthehell the fact that Kim (and his wife Pam), will be doing a signing at Minneapolis’ own Big Brain comics on wednesday sept 19, from 5-7 pm. and then the next day (thursday), giving a presentation/ talk/ slideshow at MCAD (auditorium 15) from 1 to 2:30 pm, and it’s open to the public. i haven’t seen the presentation myself, but knowing Kim (and having heard rave reviews from pals who HAVE seen it), it’s going to be multi-media and WILDLY entertaining.

so, spread the word or come on down to one or both.

if you got any questions, email me (or Barbara Schulz at mcad, barbara_schulz@mcad.edu)

hope yer all good.
best, zak sally

24 HOUR COMIC DAY 2007

It’s COMING…

OCTOBER 20th, 2007.
10am.
The MN Center for Book Arts.
24 HOUR COMIC DAY 2007!!!

24 HOUR COMIC DAY is an annual event where cartoonists around the world each try to create 24 pages of comics in 24 hours

Interested parties can sign up with me(danno) at:staplegenius at yahoo.com

more info can be found at:
www.cartoonistconspiracy.com
www.24hourcomics.com

24 HOUR COMICS DAY this year will run from 10am Oct 20th to 10am Oct 21st. It will be held once again at the wonderful and spacious MN CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS and is sponsored by BIG BRAIN COMICS.

More info to follow in the few short weeks ahead.

SIGN UP TODAY!!!

SF Jam report and photo

The meeting last night was a huge success and our latest Jam Comic Challenge based on using a written script started with a bang.

– First off writer Joe Borrelli provided a spooky Halloween script entitled…Scaredy Cat. It’s 9 pages of spooky fun.

– Next folks volunteered to do character designs based on the script

– Then each artist was able to tackle any panel anywhere on any page from the script. The secret was to keep the whole page in mind so we did not run out of space for other panels. It was interesting and fun as artist had to keep the characters ‘on model’ but in their own style.

We have a few more sessions to finish the 9 page story and we can always use fresh blood to help out. The story will be posted on-line here when it is finished.

This swanky photo below is of last night’s jam was taken by Doc Popular with his new, very cool iPhone.


Can you spot the Eisner Award Winner in this photo?

San Francisco Comic Jam – Thursday September 13th 2007

It’s once again time for the San Francisco Cell’s bi-monthly jam, Thursday September 13th, 2007.

As some of you may know, the SF-Cell likes to keep our selfs challenged. In the past we have set limitations and rules to create comics featuring: no dialog, all action, all environmental to name a few and had some great results. One example is our comic LMNTAL (which can be read on-line).

For this sessions challenge we are going to try something many of us comic creators do not do….work with a traditional comic book script.

Thanks to the help of a local comic book writer were going to create a comic from a dialog-free script and see what happens. It will mean that the artists will be doing there own interpretation of the script, but also working to with each other to make it complete and coherent. Should be fun.

Any level of artist is welcome to grab there favorite drawing tools and come on out and join us an another adventure in Comics.

When: Thu, Sep 13, 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm (NOTE the side bar calendar has the wrong times)
Where: Church St. Cafe
Description: The San Francisco cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy meets twice a month from on the second and last Thursday of the month from 6-10PM at Church St. Cafe. Church St. Cafe 260 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94114 Transit info for San Francisco can be found here: transitinfo.org