New stamp series celebrates Canada's iconic graphic novelists (2)

From Canada Post.

Canada Post announces the issuance of a series of six stamps – the second of a diptych (the first was issued in 2024) – paying tribute to Canadian graphic novel authors: Kate Beaton, Jimmy Beaulieu, Guy Delisle, Julie Doucet, Bryan Lee O’Malley and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, in self-portraits reading one of their most famous books.

‘Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse’ Review

Alan Gardner in The Daily Cartoonist.

The documentary Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse premieres at Film Forum in New York City last week. 

Given the current political climate in the United States and abroad, the film serves not only as an educational 90-minute exploration of one of the most influential comic creators of the 20th century but also as a reminder that the themes running through Art’s life—fascism, illiberalism, and extremism—are not relics of the past but present threats to democracies worldwide.

Jules Feiffer dies at 95

From The Washington Post.

Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter and children’s book author who was one of the most humorously neurotic literary voices of his generation, died Jan. 17 at his home in Richfield Springs, New York. He was 95.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, JZ Holden.

2024 Sigma Delta Chi Award Winners

From the Society of Professional Journalists.

Congrats to this year's recipients of the Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Rob Rogers won in the category of Editorial Cartooning (circulation 40,000+), 

Pictures at an exhibition

From the Facebook pages of Benoit Peeters and Jenny Robb.

The “Comics 1964-2024” exhibition opened yesterday at the Centre Pompidou.

750 original documents linking European, American and Japanese creations in a relevant and often magical way, undoubtedly makes it the most beautiful to date.

You can discover admirable originals by George Herriman, Geo McManus, Hergé, Calvo as well as creations by Lorenzo Mattotti, Chris Ware, Blutch, David B, Emmanuel Guibert, Catherine Meurisse and many others.

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum also lent artworks by Winsor McCay, Will Eisner, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Jay Lynch and Bill Watterson.

Posy Simmonds wins the Grand Prix in Angouleme

From Heidi MacDonald at Comics Beat. 

British cartoonist Posy Simmonds has won Angouleme’s Grand Prix, considered one of the highest honors in comics worldwide.

Simmonds won over the other finalists Daniel Clowes and Catherine Meurisse, and the award, presented for a lifetime body of work, is certainly richly deserved. 

Meurisse, Simmonds & Clowes shortlisted for Angoulême Grand Prix

From Paul Gravett's Facebook page.

Catherine Meurisse, Posy Simmonds and Daniel Clowes are the three nominees, voted for by the profession, for the prestigious Grand Prix of the 51st Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême. 

The second round (from Friday January 12 to Wednesday January 17), will now invite the same college of authors to elect the winner from among these three nominees. 

At the end of this entire electoral process - carried out entirely under the supervision of a bailiff - the name of the 2024 Grand Prix will be announced on Wednesday January 24, during the Official Opening of the Festival.

The End of The Nib

From The Nib. 

Illustration by Jim Rugg

Matt Bors writes:

After ten years of publishing, The Nib is going to close down this summer. 

The new issue of our magazine, the Future issue, will be our last. We will continue to publish online every weekday through August and then shut down.

The winners of the 19th annual Doug Wright Awards

From the Doug Wright Awards.

The 2023 Doug Wright Awards, hosted by Dustin Harbin, were held at the Arts & Letters club in Toronto

The winners are:

Interview with Posy Simmonds

From The Big Picture.

Posy Simmonds, The Guardian 2004, Literary Life 2

Born in 1945 in Berkshire, Posy Simmonds drew from an early age. 

After studying at the Sorbonne and Central School - now Central St Martins - respectively, she entered the world of print journalism, working as a cartoonist for several British newspapers from the late 60's onwards. 

"Ducks" by Kate Beaton wins Canada Reads!

"We are all implicated in the story Ducks tells. Ducks is one woman's story, but it is the story of an industry that we all rely on in some way.”—Mattea Roach, champion of Ducks on Canada Reads.

Ducks is the first graphic novel to make it to the top in Canada's premier literary competition.

"The Art of the News: Comics Journalism" Exhibition

From the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

The Art of the News: Comics Journalism will be on view at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum on November 12. The exhibition is the first major retrospective devoted to the increasingly influential genre of comics journalism.

Kate Beaton Talks to Emily Donaldson

From The Globe and Mail.

In 2005, before she penned her funny, bestselling Hark! A Vagrant series of historically based comics, Cape Breton’s Kate Beaton decided to follow a well-worn path to Alberta’s oil sands with the goal of paying off her student loans. 

What she found in the camps – the loneliness, the toxic masculinity, the occasional beauty, the camaraderie of a place that, for better and worse, has been intrinsic to our economy, and to our image of ourselves at home and abroad – is detailed in her new graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.

The title has a double meaning – Beaton’s fellow Maritimers often refer to her, and each other, as “duck,” but there’s also an incident where a raft of ducks die in a tailing pond. 

Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2022

From CXC 2022.

CXC 2022 Poster Art and Logo by Robyn Smith, Design by Geoff Raker

Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), the international showcase for cartoon art, is excited to announce its featured guests for the 2022 festival running October 6th to 9th, the organization’s first fully in-person festival since 2019. 

CXC brings the global family of cartoon storytellers, comic makers, and animators together with the people who love and are inspired by cartoon art, and connects them in Columbus, Ohio.

The 76th annual Reuben Awards

From the National Cartoonists Society website.

The 76th annual Reuben Awards will be held in Kansas City, MO on Thursday 15th & Friday 16th September, 2022.

We hope you will join us for captivating seminars from the industries’ biggest names, opportunities to celebrate achievements in cartoon arts, and of course, the legendary NCS parties that you and your peers will talk about for years to come!

Ann Telnaes named Pulitzer Finalist for 2022

From AAEC website.

Washington Post editorial cartoonist (and past AAEC President) Ann Telnaes was selected as a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in the newly renamed “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary” category. 

The judges cited her portfolio for its “succinct and layered cartoons covering a wide range of social and political topics with immediacy and impact.”

"Putin’s Russia: The Rise of a Dictator"

 From The Tyee.

Vladimir Putin is purportedly the richest man in the world. Of course, much of his wealth is stolen from ordinary Russian people.

In Putin’s Russia: The Rise of a Dictator, cartoonist Darryl Cunningham recreates the life and times of Putin, from childhood to permanently installed ruler of Russia. 

Along the way, events like the war in Syria, the 2016 U.S. election, plenty of murder, injustice and corruption, and a seemingly endless list of dead journalists and jailed opponents unfold.

Clay Bennett defends Art Spiegelman by lampooning the ‘Maus’ firestorm

 Michael Cavna in The Washington Post.

The battles over which books get taught is an ongoing national debate, but for Clay Bennett, the fresh skirmish in Tennessee especially hit home.

“This particular episode was a local story for me,” says Bennett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, meaning that the epicenter of last month’s controversy over the graphic novel “Maus” was “just up the road” from him in McMinn County.

That is where the school board unanimously voted Jan. 10 to remove “Maus” from its eighth-grade language arts curriculum, citing profanity, nudity and violence — eventually sparking a national conversation over why the seminal graphic memoir centered on the Holocaust was being removed from the classroom.

Tennessee school board bans Holocaust graphic novel ‘Maus’

From CNBC. 

A Tennessee school board has voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade language arts curriculum due to concerns about profanity and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.

"Red Lines - Political Cartoons and the Struggle against Censorship"

From Cartoon Movement. 

Red Lines by Cherian George and Sonny Liew, a 448-page behemoth, not only gives a broad and comprehensive overview of all forms of censorship, it does so in style, as the authors opted to present their book as a graphic narrative.