Alexandra477

Potential Juggernaut: The Future of Columbus Comics

I don’t know much about comics, but I enjoy reading them and am inspired by the local creators who work hard to build a strong scene. When I heard there was a panel called “A Voltron That Has Yet to Assemble: The Columbus Comics Scene Past, Present, and Future” at CCAD’s Mix comics symposium, I had to attend.

Moderated by James Moore (2-Headed Monster Comics), the panel included Bob Corby (S.P.A.C.E.), Ken Eppstein (Nix Comics), Jenny Robb (Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum), and Jeffrey Stang (The Laughing Ogre). Tom Spurgeon (The Comics Reporter) was the featured guest. As I typed notes, the guy next to me and the lady in front of me doodled cartoons of the panelists.

Spurgeon, the lone panelist not living in Ohio, offered a refreshing perspective. 

“Columbus has all of the earmarks of a classic emerging comics scene,” he said. “It was always this terrifying weird city that people talked about but no one knew about, sort of like the South Carolina of cities.” 

He referenced our nationally known comic shops and matter-of-fact cosmopolitanism (Ha! He knows us.) Thanks to our large volume of students and institutional support, he thinks Columbus is a “potential juggernaut” in the comics world.

“The Midwest has real audiences of arts enthusiasts,” he said. “And it’s actually kind of a nice place to live.” 

Spurgeon established himself in Seattle, where he encountered “a mix of angry old people and angry young people.” He name-dropped a bunch of people he worked with that I’d never heard of. And Gary Larson¹.

“Do Columbus comics feel a close connection with one another?” Spurgeon asked. Moore responded that most of them feel a real sense of community. They frequently hang out and share meals together.

“One thing that we all have in common is music as a topic,” Moore said. “A lot of local comics are about musicians.”  

Eppstein, who actually molded his business plan after those of local indie bands, aims to publish a monthly cartoon newspaper.

“Columbus is one of the best cross-sections of American culture,” he said. “If you can come here and build an audience, that audience will follow you to other cities.”

When the OSU Cartoon Museum reopens in November, Robb hopes to better serve local comic creators. She’d also like to start a graphic novel book club. In her eyes, when it comes to the future of Columbus comics, “the sky is the limit.”

¹ Okay. I vowed not to be That Girl who ran up to him afterward, babbling about how I wrote my college entrance essay about Larson and that two huge compendiums of Larson’s work live in my kitchen. But I thought about it.

The State Library: A Theme Park of History from Ohio and Beyond

 

 

                          Until recently, I didn’t believe it was possible to hold a letter that George Washington wrote in 1788. Or flip through a 15^th-century medieval manuscript. I definitely didn’t think I could do so less than a mile from home. But thanks to a friend, I discovered an endless world of history and possibility at the State Library of Ohio.

 

 

 

The State Library was founded in Columbus in 1817 and provides a dizzying amount of free services for Ohio residents, libraries, and state employees. Located in the historic Jeffrey Manufacturing Building in Italian Village, it offers a statewide resource sharing service to more than 500 libraries. Its catalog contains more than 800,000 items.

“We can impact just about everyone in Ohio,” said Marsha McDevitt-Stredney, the State Library’s Director of Marketing and Communications.

 

 

 

 

                    The State Library is the only regional federal repository in Ohio. You can access federal government information for free, including congressional records, executive branch documents, census statistics, house and senate journals, topographical maps, atlases, and U.S. patents. On the state level, you can explore rosters of Ohio soldiers from the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and World War I; Laws of Ohio from 1803; agricultural reports (including history of Ohio State Fairs); Ohio Supreme Court decisions; and election statistics.

 

 

 

 

                         You can also get suggestions from librarians about what to read; access digital audiobooks, eBooks, music, and video; request help with genealogy projects; find jobs and get assistance applying for them; take practice tests and learn workplace skills; foster early childhood literacy; encourage other Ohioans to read; support the works of Ohio writers, artists, and musicians at the Ohioana Library; obtain recorded books, magazines, and playback equipment for blind, visually impaired, physically handicapped, and reading disabled Ohio residents; access a collection of materials related to deafness and American Sign Language; and research thousands of electronic resources and databases.

This place is cool.

 

                             As I explored the 98,000 square feet of history heaven, I found highway maps from 1919, vintage atlases, hundred-year-old New York Times microfiche, and 1916 U.S. soil samples. I also saw old FEMA flood insurance maps and an 1896 U.S. Army guide to drill regulations for light artillery.

 

 

 

 

 

Without question, one of the highlights is the Rare Book Room. It’s lovingly tended by Shannon Kupfer, who’ll be glad to give you a tour if you make an appointment. Among its 7,000 items are the aforementioned Washington letter and medieval manuscript, the complete works of Martin Luther circa 1539 (in German), and the exquisitely illustrated Birds of America collection.  

 

 

 

 

 

     “So many people don’t know that we even have a State Library,” said Beverly Cain, State Librarian of Ohio. “It's an incredible treasure trove.” 

 

 

 

 

                    The State Library is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and parking is free. New expanded online resources will be announced on July 1. Sign up for a free library card here. 

 

 

 

 

                         See you in the stacks.

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                 Some things are best kept secret. Colonel Sanders’ recipe. PIN numbers. What’s whispered at the end of Lost in Translation. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University is one of the biggest secrets in Columbus, but big plans are in the works to make it a place you won’t forget.

The Cartoon Library was founded in 1977, when Ohio State alumnus and famed cartoonist Milton Caniff donated his artwork to the university. It was named after former Columbus Dispatch cartoonist Billy Ireland, who mentored Caniff. With more than 300,000 original cartoons, 50,000 books, and 2.5 million comic strip clippings, it’s the world’s largest academic research facility dedicated to printed cartoon art. In addition to editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons, it has one of the world’s largest collections of Japanese manga.

This summer, the Cartoon Library will move from its hidden 6,000-square-foot digs behind the Wexner Center for the Arts to a 30,000-square-foot space at Sullivant Hall. The new area will feature three museum-quality galleries for visiting and permanent collections, and will host book tour events, cartooning workshops, and live slide show readings of comics. The Grand Opening Festival is scheduled for November.

“We want 2013-2014 to be the year of comics,” said Caitlin McGurk, visiting curator of the Cartoon Library (and a cartoonist herself).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                 There are some amazing exhibits planned for 2014 that you won’t want to miss. Trust me. In the meantime, an exhibit of A.B. Walker’s work opens tomorrow. Walker was a popular early 20^th century cartoonist who drew for Life, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The Saturday Evening Post, Judge, and Collier’s. The exhibit runs through April 26 and will be followed by a show of Civil War cartoons. In late May, the Cartoon Library will close for relocation.

The Cartoon Library is free and open to the public, but is a “closed stack” non-circulating institution. While you can’t browse items, you may access anything in the collection by completing simple paperwork and asking staff members for guidance. Researchers from around the globe visit the library to study items in the collection. All artwork is humidity/temperature controlled and stored in acid-free archival materials.

 “Tons of famous cartoonists are from Ohio,” McGurk said. “There’s no reason that Columbus shouldn’t be the main comic city in America.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       Renderings courtesy of Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

The Heaviest Christmas Present.

Many years ago, I got an extra special Christmas gift from my father. He was so excited about it that he began calling me in early November to gloat. The man has an enviable knack for superlatives.

“I really did it this year,” he told me. “I got you what might be the greatest present of all time. I just don’t know how I’m gonna top this one.”

It continued like this for days, and then weeks. “I mean, Al, I’ve outdone myself. I almost don’t want to give it to you, because that’ll be it. It’ll be the year I gave you this, and nothing else will measure up.”

He also said that shipping said wünderprez would be a major undertaking, the likes of which I’d never seen. What can it be? I wondered. Can you actually FedEx a horse? And then a large brown box, the heaviest one I’ve ever encountered, arrived on my doorstep. I thought maybe it was a compact barbell system for the basement, or a Thomas-Jefferson-era fruitcake. Or maybe a compact horse.

Finally, Christmas rolled around and I opened it. And he was right. It was the most marvelous gift a person like me could ever hope to receive.

Let me explain. Growing up, I was obsessed with The Far Side. “Obsessed” isn’t a strong enough word to describe my commitment to the brand. Let’s just say I wrote a college entrance essay about it in 1993. One of the topics was “If you could meet anyone, living or deceased, who would it be?” Abraham Lincoln? Bo-ring. Mother Theresa? Yawn¹. I wanted to meet Gary Larson for breakfast, and I feverishly scribbled to my first-choice school about it². You see, every Christmas throughout my childhood, my dad gave me a flip-a-day Far Side calendar. This way, I could greet each dawn with a snort and a chortle. Unbeknownst to me, The Complete Far Side was created in 2003. It’s a double-volume, 1,272-page compendium of every Far Side cartoon from 1980 to 1994. It weighs 18 pounds.

These annals of dark humor live in my kitchen, lest I need a zap of hilarity at a moment’s notice. Thanks, Dad. And Mr. Larson: that waffle invitation was an open one.

1 No offense, MT. We good?
2 They let me in. High five to my fellow sordid homey in the Admissions office.

Emily Barr.

Many years ago, my dear friend Kristin told me about a British author named Emily Barr and a book called Backpack. Kristin has smashing taste in prose, so I bought it. And I read every page of that thing so hard it should’ve turned to pulp. Since then, I’ve ravaged every novel that Ms. Barr, a former travel columnist, has ever written. I just finished her latest work, The First Wife, in less than three days¹. When I read a Barr Book, the world basically (and gloriously) stops, and I basically (and gloriously) can’t do anything else until I complete it. As with books by Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel, David Sedaris, and Laurie Notaro, I scribble the release date of every forthcoming Barr treasure in my planner and pre-order it. Her books are only available in the United Kingdom, so I always have to ship them across the pond. If you like pithy thrillers about strong (or soon-to-be-strong) women, have an obsession with Europe, Asian, and/or Australian travel, and love learning new British catchphrases, you just might enjoy Emily Barr half as much as I do.

1: I also just finished Tina Fey’s new memoir Bossypants, which was hilariously bright and candid.

   

The Lacuna & Water for Elephants.

My favorite quality in protagonists is the willingness to jump into a life-altering situation without knowing where it will lead. Unknown quests take readers on a great ride, allowing us to burrow in journeys of self-discovery (or antidiscovery). Historical fiction books about guileless main characters often reveal massive depth of soul. Plus they’re really, really fun to read.

In The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, Harrison Shepherd hovers between the United States and Mexico, never quite belonging to either. He serves as an assistant to Diego Rivera, a cook, a federal art transporter, a personal secretary to Leon Trotsky, a close friend of Frida Kahlo, a wildly revered novelist, a closeted homosexual, and a societal outcast. His success and subsequent downfall stem from being in the wrong place at the right time. He never fits in, so he acquires tools to build a secret guidebook to life that pertains only to him. The newly orphaned and under-experienced Jacob Jankowski of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants is torn between the tragedy of “normal” life and the pageantic, lascivious world of The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Like the fast-moving circus train upon which he leaps, Jacob careens into his capacity for mental strength, integrity, and romantic love. Both Kingsolver and Gruen shape the billowing progress of their leading men with fluidity and poise. Few things, after all, rival characters with character.

The Book That Took Me 11 Years To Read.

I recently finished reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Even though I bought a copy in 2000 when it was first published, I couldn’t manage to tackle its layered complexity. So after several years and multiple attempts, I stashed it in the bookcase. Until a couple of months ago when I read it, relished it, and subsequently had my socks blown clean off. Without giving away one morsel, I will say this: It’s astoundingly and feverishly written. It profoundly captures the voices of numerous characters. And it baffles me to the core that Ms. Smith wrote it when she was 24 years old. I look forward to marveling at how she owns every word of her two remaining novels.

   

Laurie Notaro At The Columbus Performing Arts Center.

“We’re all friends here,” famed author Laurie Notaro said last night to a giddy crowd of multi-aged women. And I believed her. After reading every one of her books, I do feel like she’s my pal. Laurie made her first trip to Columbus as part of the Thurber House Evenings With Authors series. She read excerpts from her new book Spooky Little Girl, which was released nationwide on Tuesday, and portions of her unnamed forthcoming essay collection.

Laurie’s warmth and easy smile immediately reminded me of Annabeth Gish. She was relaxed, gracious, and lightning-witted. Instead of talking to us, she was confiding in us. We were all in her attic with a towel shoved under the door and a pack of contraband cigarettes. There was only one other time in my life that I got to see a favorite author, so this was big. The flutterings in my stomach quashed those of going to Jeni’s or winning a bagged goldfish at the state fair. “I’m freaking out right now,” I kept whispering to my boyfriend.

You know how they say guests on The Daily Show shouldn’t try to be funny, because their “jokes” will just tank that much more epically against Jon Stewart’s? I think Laurie could pull it off. She gloriously recounted Ambien hazes and familial absurdities. She lamented underappreciated Halloween costumes, such as Anna Nicole Smith in clown makeup, Ann Coulter eating a baby sandwich, and Bette Davis’ character from What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? My boyfriend, who has never read any of Laurie’s books, was the evening’s loudest cackler on more than one occasion.

In person, you see Laurie’s strength and kindness. She respects her fans and believes in the graceful power of serving as sidesplitting neo-feminist. During the question and answer session, she awarded inquirers with homemade tin bookmarks from a baggie in her purse. Each woman prefaced her question wit heartfelt remarks about how Laurie’s books have unequivocally inspired them. I didn’t ask a question or stand in line to have my copy of Spooky Little Girl autographed. Those types of situations make me squirrely and typically result in blushing, sweating, stammering, and sometimes fainting. Instead I took with me Laurie’s mantra about writing. She said that she writes quickly and doesn’t look back, so as not to kill her natural magic with scrupulous rehashing. Now that was some sage advice from a true friend.

 

David Cross Owes Me Kleenex.

Forty-six. That’s the number of times I laughed out loud reading David Cross’ new(ish) book “I Drink For A Reason.” I’ve been a fan of his for years and couldn't wait for his authorial debut. When I wasn’t wiping my nose or eyes with my sleeve from laughing too hard, I was marveling at his precocity. The guy is a genius. Similar to Jon Stewart, he has enough foresight to build hilarious jokes that are crammed with real information. This 236-page compendium of random lists, salty musings, and loving hate letters rivals his bits about Squagels and electric scissors.

To start off, he dedicated the book to himself. (“For me. I couldn’t have done it without you.”) Then he proceeds to ladle acerbic gravy all over Bill O’ Reilly, James Frey, and Larry the Cable the Guy. But it's his colossal ire toward Jim Belushi that's more memorable than a Serta visco elastic pillow. One encounter with “The Belush” (a.k.a. “Beluminator,” Bubbaloosh,” and “Belulu”) at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas was enough to plague the tepidly talented actor with penchants for passed-out babysitters, Whasssuppp Budweiser ads, and cross-dressing strippers. And as someone who writes music reviews, I gleefully recoiled while reading the chapter “Top Ten CDs to Listen to while Listening to Other CDs,” in which David galvanizes Pitchfork reviewers for being “very, very precious and often overly verbose.” After excerpts from actual album reviews he inserts his own creations, like “Only the Proletariat Flosses” by Screaming at the Mirror and “Elegant Nuisance” by ButterFat 100.  

If you like to laugh, appreciate The Onion, were born between 1965 and 1978, shun FOX News, and admire Tobias Fünke, please: Read this book.

 

 

 

Hipsters & Algebra.

We swung by a little hipster neighborhood gathering the other night. Amidst the sea of tattoos and messenger bags I saw this book:

The title alone made me sweat doofy uncool bullets. Poser alert. In high school my pre-calculus teacher sent home a note dissuading my parents from enrolling me in real calculus. In college I was advised to take “Discreet Mathematics” to fulfill my one math requirement. It was comforting to meet a few other people who also counted with their fingers.

I could squeeze into a pair of skinny jeans and throw on sunglasses covering all but my chin, but I still won’t be able to tell you why 3x + 1 = 10.

Boy Bands & Chuck Klosterman.

I just finished Chuck Klosterman’s latest book (and first novel), “Downtown Owl.” It takes place during the early 80’s in a fictional North Dakota town “where disco is over but punk never happened.” According to the dust jacket it’s a “darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing.”

It made me grateful for not living in a two-traffic-light town or having a nickname like Baby Ass Jam.

Perhaps the most amusing part of “Downtown Owl” is a hypothetical fistfight between a stocky maniac who (intentionally) burned his arm multiple times with the cigarette lighter from his Barracuda and a superstar athlete who’s as dumb as he is large.

When diving into Chuck’s books I take my time and reread every sentence. The man makes me guffaw like no one’s business and his syntax is pure wizardry. I accosted him a few years ago at the Newark airport; we were on the same flight so I slinked over to him and blubbered “You’re so awesome, I’ve read all of your books.” It wasn’t unlike a fourth grade girl at a Jonas Brothers concert.

Devouring Twilight.

Yes, I’m in my thirties. Most of the time I act like an adult but sometimes it’s like so super cool to like get caught in a teen trap, you know? I recently ravaged all four books in the Twilight saga (or as my boyfriend likes to call it, “Teen Vampire Lust”). I haven’t been this besotted with a series since Flowers in the Attic. Naturally Amazon has added me to its teen paranormal email list, and naturally I haven’t unsubscribed from it. Last night I rather enjoyed watching the first "Twilight" movie despite its morbid reviews. It wasn’t nearly as riveting as the book but it provided a beautifully saccharine adolescent escape. The sequel “New Moon” hits theaters this November and I’m unashamed to admit that I’m looking forward to it.

Signed,
The Girl Who Used To Stay Home To Watch Roswell.