Posts Tagged ‘comics’

Preview from Wordstock this Sunday: From Playboy to the Bible

From Playboy to the Bible: Adapting Writing for Screen and Image

New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, writer Mark Russell and filmmaker Andy Mingo sit down with writer Nora Robertson to discuss collaboration between writers and artists in visual mediums. Get a look at a sneak peek of Mingo’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s short story “Romance” that recently appeared in Playboy, images from Wheeler and Russell’s adaptation of the Bible, God Is Disappointed in You (Top Shelf in 2012), and Robertson’s poetry film with Jason Bahling, The Humble Egg. Wordstock, Oregon Convention Center, Sunday the 9th, 4PM, Oregon Cultural Trust Stage, presented by New Oregon Arts & Letters.

From God Is Disappointed in You:

God had but one rule: do not eat from the two magic trees which he’d planted at the center of the garden. Why he put them there to begin with is anyone’s guess. But, having received this cryptic admonition, Adam and Eve’s curiosity was piqued. And having a talking snake constantly coaxing them into eating from the trees certainly didn’t help. Eventually, they succumbed to temptation, eating the magical fruit and unlocking its secret power, which seemed to consist mostly of making them uptight about nudity.

Their blatant disregard for his one and only rule introduced God to a new sensation, one he would experience many times during his long association with human beings: God was pissed off. Furious, God evicted Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, forcing them to fend for themselves in the surrounding wilderness. To add to their misery, God also ordered them to become parents.

 

The Father of the Modern Comic Novel: Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco in Conversation at PNCA

Photo credit: Craig Sietsma

“Narrative and pictures are the core of the artistic project these days,” Art Spiegelman told moderator Joe Sacco in front of a hushed crowd at PNCA recently. Part of PNCA’s Focus Week, the evening was held in the long concrete hall of the Swigert Commons, and was packed from the floor to the balconies with students and representatives of the Portland arts community. Sacco, himself the author of American Book Award-winning graphic novel Palestine, was understated and collegial—the format was one of my favorites, a renowned artist having a conversation with another well-known artist. Spiegelman, casual and slouched in his chair, said this experimentation with words and pictures “is what became the graphic novel.” In fact, Spiegelman is often described as the father of the modern comic novel. To which Spiegelman said in a Literary Arts talk the next night, “If so, I want a paternity test.”

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Sid Miller Launches Crow Arts Manor: Arts Education is a Right

I always love how the Tin House summer workshop lets you hear Steve Almond talk about sex writing, or Aimee Bender talk about the plot-driven plot, all for $15. Burnside Review editor-in-chief Sid Miller is founding a new writing/arts center, Crow Arts Manor, that will make it highly accessible to work with some of the city’s finest artists such as cartoonist Jesse Reklaw, fiction writers Monica Drake and Lidia Yuknavitch, poets Emily Kendal Frey (pictured below with Miller) and Zach Schomburg and Mercury journalist Marjorie Skinner to name a few. Similar to LA writing center Beyond Baroque, Miller would like “ongoing arts education to be a right, not a privilege.”

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LIVE at the Body Show Benefit: Voodoo Doughnut Contest

Brad Fortier, Matt Bors, Karl Kling, Danielle Fish, and Stumptown’s Tony Thayer eat doughnuts creatively in the Voodoo Doughnut Contest at the Body Show Benefit. Judged by Voodoo Doughnuts owner Tres Shannon, Shannon Wheeler, and Tiffany Lee Brown. The benefit was a premiere for The Body Show:The Humble Egg, an experimental short film by Nora Robertson and Jason Bahling about a kitschy 60’s cooking show for housewives that hurtles the host into a private world of tangential madness and repressed memories of her grandmother. Hosted by Mark Russell. Documentation by Karl Lind of In the Can Productions.

LIVE at the Body Show Benefit: The Voodoo Doughnut Contest from Nora Robertson on Vimeo.

Body Show Benefit: Cartoonist Matt Bors on Afghanistan for KPFA 94.1 Berkeley + Wordstock panel with Ted Rall

Portland cartoonist Matt Bors recently traveled to Afghanistan with Ted Rall to cover the state of the country. I happened to catch his and Ted’s panel presentation at Wordstock and was super intrigued by their experiences as the sole team of unimbedded journalists covering this conflict in a place where no one, literally no one, goes on the streets at night.

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Chloe Eudaly’s Kickstarter for Reading Frenzy

I don’t know about you, but my most pivotal cultural experiences growing up didn’t happen at the art museum, the ballet or the symphony.  —Chloe Eudaly

Reading Frenzy, if you don’t already know it, is a Portland treasure.  Located across Burnside from Powell’s, it is a specialty bookstore that has been supporting and promoting independent publishers and artists, with a special focus on “zines, mini comics, alternative and d.i.y. culture, progressive politics, rebels, renegades and full on freaks,” since 1994. This support includes an open door consignment policy for all local authors and publishers, dozens of free literary events every year and monthly art shows. To be able to continue bringing all this goodness together, owner Chloe Eudaly of Reading Frenzy could use a little help.  Here’s a video made by Karl Lind of In the Can Productions to get the word out through Kickstarter.

More testimonial from Christopher Peralta here.

Dark Horse Comics tattoo

Several months ago, I ran into my friend Shannon Wheeler at about 10 o’clock at the gym, and we decided to reward our efforts with a beer at Chopsticks karaoke bar, which is a Chinese restaurant that a lot of k-stars and musicians tend to sing at.  One of my favorite facts about Chopsticks is that Elliot Smith used to sing here.  We sat down on what I remember as red patent pleather bar stools and ordered a couple Pabst and tried to decide if we were brave enough to sing.

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