Tag Archives: mocca

Wordless Worlds event at MoCCA

ww3post

World War 3 Illustrated Release Party
Thursday, April 30, 2009 7-9PM

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art -MoCCA
594 Broadway, Suite 401 (Between Houston and Prince st.)
New York, NY 10012

Admission: Donation Suggested / Free for MoCCA Members

Featuring multi-media presentation of art by:

PETER KUPER
MAC McGILL
SETH TOBOCMAN
PAULA HEWITT AMRAM
SABRINA JONES
ERIC DROOKER
KEVIN PYLE
CHUCK SPERRY
REBECCA MIGDAL
and many others!

with an animated film by Onur Tukel

live music by
Eric Blitz, Steve Wishnia, Andy Laties, Breeze and more!

World War 3 Illustrated #39
Edited by Peter Kuper and Kevin Pyle

With all this talk about a picture being worth a thousand words and so much chatter in the news, but little being said, World War 3 illustrated presents our first wordless comics issue.  It features comics and illustrations by Eric Drooker, Mats!?, Geoffrey Grahn, Rebecca Migdal, Matt Mahurin, Carlo Quispe, Ryan Inzana, Seth Tobocman, Peter Kuper, Felipe Galindo, Mac McGill, David Sandlin, Barron Storey, Onur Tukel, Sabrina Jones, Andy Singer, Santiago Cohen, Kevin Pyle, Gerard Conte, Paula Hewitt , Edwin Vasquez, Terry Laban, and an article on picture novels by scholar David Berona.

This new issue leaps beyond language barriers — sort of a Tower of a Babel, minus the babble.  All of us speaking one language again — through pictures.

Peter Kuper was interviewed awhile back for Newsarama–he talked about the collaborative nature of the project and his challenges as an editor.  Here’s a taste:

“Every time I try to stop doing it, something happens that pulls me back in … it’s like the Mafia, there’s no escape!” Kuper observed of working on the magazine, which is in its 28th year of publication. “Over the years when my enthusiasm for dedicating the enormous amount of time and energy it takes to put out an issue starts to wane, there’s a riot in Tompkins Square park, a war in Iraq (the first one) or 9/11, and I rediscover the importance of maintaining a forum that doesn’t rely on outside financing or exert some form of censorship.

“To be clear, World War 3 is very much a group effort (I certainly haven’t edited every other issue) and wouldn’t exist if a large number of people didn’t keep pulling together to make it happen. If there hadn’t been we would have burned out by now.”

The artist further explained the need for WW3, adding, “There have been many points when WW3 was the only place to publish certain ideas. This was true during Reagan’s presidency, but especially true after 9/11 when even artists like Art Spiegelman found the mainstream press completely closed to work like what ended up being In The Shadow of No Towers and turned to WW3 to get it published. Last issue I did an eleven-page piece on my experience in Mexico during a teachers strike. WW3 was the only place I could find for a piece of that length.”

As issue 39 will be entirely wordless, Kuper was asked about the reasons for publishing an all-silent issue. “I have always been a fan of wordless storytelling from Lynd Ward to Eric Drooker, and after eight years of Bush I’m speechless!” he laughed. “Also I had the kooky notion that it would be easier to edit a wordless issue. I had it completely backwards; it has taken twice as long and required much more hands-on editing with each piece, down to sketching out suggestions. Thankfully I was able to hoodwink Kevin Pyle (Blind Spots) into helping me with the editing duty.”

WW3 Illustrated #39 will be “90% comics, 5% fat-free illustrations and a great article on Wordless books by the #1 scholar on the subject, David A. Beronä,” Kuper explained. Previous issues of the magazine have made room for political and social essays to run alongside the magazine’s cartoon commentaries.

You can read the complete interview here.  And to see more art, animation and info about World War 3 illustrated visit the official site.

Jillian Tamaki gives a MoCCA/Mini-Comics workshop!

tamaki mocca flyerWhat: Mini Mini-Comics Workshop!

When: Saturday, April 25 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Where: 8th Floor Illustration Library, 2 W. 13th

Who: Jillian Tamaki and YOU!

Come learn about comic conventions, the comics industry, self-publishing, and constructing your own zines, artbooks, and mini-comics. A great introduction to those considering submitting work to this year’s MoCCA Festival!  Some people think these conventions are only about comic-comics (pictures in panels), but Jillian has amassed a huge collection of books at these types of festivals that run the whole gamut of arty, comic-y, narrative, non-narrative, silkscreen, photocopied, etc. etc. She will also talk about her experiences making her first mini-comic and how she did it SOOO wrong. She’ll talk about how to construct these things in a non-painful way. Plus, she’ll answer any other comics industry related questions!

Don’t miss this truly great opportunity to meet with Jillian and get the benefit of her experiences!

Last Reminder: Kim Deitch Q & A at MoCCA

k. deitch

Tonight at 7 p.m.
Kim Deitch Q & A with curator Bill Kartalopoulos
Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401
New York, NY 

In a unique and wide-ranging conversation, Kim and Bill (Illustration Part-time Faculty) will discuss Deitch’s work and career to date. Deitch will present examples of recent work and will also preview images from his current works in progress.

Cartoonist Kim Deitch to Headline Two Public Events at MoCCA

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) announced that legendary underground cartoonist and graphic novelist Kim Deitch will make two special appearances at the museum in association with MoCCA’s current exhibit, Kim Deitch: A Retrospective.

Tomorrow, on October 30, Kim Deitch will host a Cartoon Movie Night featuring rarely seen animated cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s hand-picked for the occasion from Deitch’s own personal collection.  This period of animation inspired Deitch’s signature character Waldo the Cat and is the subject of his acclaimed graphic novel The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, which is featured in the exhibit.  As a special Halloween treat, MoCCA will also display for one night only selected specimens from Deitch and spouse Pam Butler’s extensive collection of antique toy cats.  The blurring of fact, fiction and autobiography in Deitch’s work is a major focus of Kim Deitch: A Retrospective, and this display will present a rare opportunity to see the historical artifacts that motivate the fictional narrative in Deitch’s graphic novel Alias the Cat.

On November 13, Kim Deitch will appear at MoCCA for a Q & A session with exhibit curator (and Parsons Illustration Part-time Faculty) Bill Kartalopoulos.  In a unique and wide-ranging conversation, the two will discuss Deitch’s work and career to date. Deitch will present examples of recent work and will also preview images from his current works in progress.

Both events are free and open to the public, and run as part of a regularly scheduled series of “MoCCA Thursdays” events at the Museum.

Kim Deitch’s career spans the entire post-war history of avant-garde comics, from the underground to the literary mainstream. As an early contributor to the East Village Other, Deitch was a charter member of the underground comix scene that exploded with the 1968 publication of Robert Crumb’s Zap #1.  Forty years later, he stands alongside Crumb, Bill Griffith, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and Art Spiegelman as one the most notable and prolific artists to emerge from that milieu.  Kim Deitch: A Retrospective features ninety-seven pieces spanning the artist’s entire career, including comics originals, preparatory sketches, prints, and animation cel set-ups.

The exhibit runs through December 5, 2008.

MoCCA is located at 594 Broadway, Suite 401 (between Houston & Prince)
New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212 254-3511
MoCCA is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 12 – 5 pm
Suggested Donation during museum hours: $5
For more information please visit: http://www.moccany.org

Reminder and Repost: Kim Deitch Retrospective

MoCCA is hosting a fantastic artistic survey of legendary comic artist Kim Deitch.  Even better, the exhibition is curated by Parsons Illustration faculty Bill Kartalopoulos.  Here’s the official press release:

Kim Deitch: A Retrospective will display original comics pages and other work covering the artist’s entire career to date, beginning with full-page comic strips drawn for the East Village Other in the sixties up to recent graphic novels including The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Alias the Cat, Shadowland, and Deitch’s Pictorama. The exhibit will also feature rarely seen work including elaborate preparatory drawings, hand-colored originals, animation cel set-ups and lithographs.

Kim Deitch was born in Los Angeles in 1944, the eldest son of Oscar-wining animator Gene Deitch (Tom Terrific, Munro). Deitch studied at the Pratt Institute, traveled with the Norwegian Merchant Marines and worked at a mental institution before joining the burgeoning underground press in 1967. As an early contributor to the East Village Other and the editor of Gothic Blimp Works, Kim Deitch was a charter member of the underground comix scene that exploded with the 1968 publication of Robert Crumb’s Zap #1. Forty years later, he stands alongside Crumb, Bill Griffith, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and Art Spiegelman as one the most notable and prolific artists to emerge from that milieu. In addition to his comic books and graphic novels, Deitch’s work has appeared in venues including RAW, Weirdo, Arcade, Details, the L.A. Weekly, McSweeney’s, Nickelodeon Magazine, and The New Yorker.

“Kim Deitch’s career spans the entire post-war history of avant-garde comics, from the underground to the literary mainstream,” said exhibit curator Bill Kartalopoulos. “Deitch brilliantly weaves vast intergenerational narratives that enfold a deep history of American popular entertainment. Distinctions between fiction and reality blur in his meta-fictional world just as real madness bleeds into the visions and schemes of the artists, entertainers, and hustlers who populate his stories. The result is a rich narrative tapestry as compelling and as breathtaking as Deitch’s densely layered, tightly woven, and intricately detailed black and white comics pages.”

Deitch’s body of work stretches outward from comics to embrace a spectrum of visual-narrative modes, including extra-textual single images and illustrated prose modeled after Victorian illustrated fiction. His most recent book is Deitch’s Pictorama, a collection of illustrated fiction produced in collaboration with brothers Seth and Simon Deitch. The exhibit includes several examples of Deitch’s career-long experimentation with text/image modes.

MoCCA will publish an original poster and 1″ button featuring the “Sunshine Girl” character who stars both in Deitch’s earliest and most recent work. The Museum will also host a series of talks and events related to the exhibit.

Exhibition dates: Through December 5, 2008

MoCCA
594 Broadway, Suite 401, between Houston and Prince
New York, NY 10012

Kim Deitch Retrospective at MoCCA

MoCCA will be hosting a fantastic artistic survey of legendary comic artist Kim Deitch.  Even better, the exhibition is curated by Parsons Illustration faculty Bill Kartalopoulos.  Here’s the official press release:

Kim Deitch: A Retrospective will display original comics pages and other work covering the artist’s entire career to date, beginning with full-page comic strips drawn for the East Village Other in the sixties up to recent graphic novels including The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Alias the Cat, Shadowland, and Deitch’s Pictorama. The exhibit will also feature rarely seen work including elaborate preparatory drawings, hand-colored originals, animation cel set-ups and lithographs.

Kim Deitch was born in Los Angeles in 1944, the eldest son of Oscar-wining animator Gene Deitch (Tom Terrific, Munro). Deitch studied at the Pratt Institute, traveled with the Norwegian Merchant Marines and worked at a mental institution before joining the burgeoning underground press in 1967. As an early contributor to the East Village Other and the editor of Gothic Blimp Works, Kim Deitch was a charter member of the underground comix scene that exploded with the 1968 publication of Robert Crumb’s Zap #1. Forty years later, he stands alongside Crumb, Bill Griffith, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and Art Spiegelman as one the most notable and prolific artists to emerge from that milieu. In addition to his comic books and graphic novels, Deitch’s work has appeared in venues including RAW, Weirdo, Arcade, Details, the L.A. Weekly, McSweeney’s, Nickelodeon Magazine, and The New Yorker.

“Kim Deitch’s career spans the entire post-war history of avant-garde comics, from the underground to the literary mainstream,” said exhibit curator Bill Kartalopoulos. “Deitch brilliantly weaves vast intergenerational narratives that enfold a deep history of American popular entertainment. Distinctions between fiction and reality blur in his meta-fictional world just as real madness bleeds into the visions and schemes of the artists, entertainers, and hustlers who populate his stories. The result is a rich narrative tapestry as compelling and as breathtaking as Deitch’s densely layered, tightly woven, and intricately detailed black and white comics pages.”

Deitch’s body of work stretches outward from comics to embrace a spectrum of visual-narrative modes, including extra-textual single images and illustrated prose modeled after Victorian illustrated fiction. His most recent book is Deitch’s Pictorama, a collection of illustrated fiction produced in collaboration with brothers Seth and Simon Deitch. The exhibit includes several examples of Deitch’s career-long experimentation with text/image modes.

MoCCA will publish an original poster and 1″ button featuring the “Sunshine Girl” character who stars both in Deitch’s earliest and most recent work. The Museum will also host a series of talks and events related to the exhibit.

Exhibition dates: September 9 – December 5, 2008
• Opening Reception: September 12, 2008, 6 – 9 pm (
free & open to the public).

MoCCA
594 Broadway, Suite 401, between Houston and Prince
New York, NY 10012

MoCCA Comic Art Festival this weekend!

The program for this year’s MoCCA Art Festival features a rich mix of animators, cartoonists, graphic artists, and writers. Our special guests include Jessica Abel, Rebecca Donner, David Hajdu, David Heatley, Chip Kidd, Alex Robinson, Frank Santoro, and Brian Wood. Saturday’s program opens with author Blake Bell talking about his new Steve Ditko biography, and closes with Dan Nadel in conversation with Chris Forgues (“CF”), whose comics, according to one critic, “exude the ease of someone just now putting all the pieces together to make for consistent great work.” Sunday’s program opens with an illustrated history of radical cartooning, by social movement cartoonist Nick Thorkelson, and closes with a screening of new animated shorts from Scandinavia.

Parsons Illustration associates will be out in force–Tara McPherson, Neil Swaab, Bob Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, Brian Wood, and Peter de Seve–so make sure you stop by and see their work!

The MoCCA Art Festival, now in its seventh year, is an annual fundraiser for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA). Each year the MoCCA Art Festival Award is presented to a creative figure whose work has elevated the cartoon arts. The Award was presented to Jules Feiffer in 2002, and in subsequent years to Art Spiegelman (2003), Roz Chast (2004), Neal Adams (2005), Gahan Wilson (2006), and Alison Bechdel (2007).

This year’s Award recipient, Bill Plympton, is an internationally renowned cartoonist, illustrator, and animator. His cartoons have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, from the Village Voice and the New York Times, to Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. He is the author and/or illustrator of numerous books and graphic novels, including Hair High, Mutant Aliens, Tube Strips, and The Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton. He is probably best known for his short and full-length animated films, which include The Tune, I Married a Strange Person, Guard Dog, and Idiots and Angels, which premiered earlier this year. Bill Plympton will be introduced by the animator Signe Baumane.

The 2008 program is being held in tandem with an event at NYU that will take place the day before the Festival officially opens, on Friday, June 6. Sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities and MoCCA, “Post-Bang: Comics Ten Minutes After the Big Bang!” features roundtables and presentations on “key trends and debates facing comics in this new, ‘post-bang’ environment.” For more information about this, click here

MoCCA Comic Art Festival
Saturday, June 7th & Sunday, June 8th, 2008
Hours: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Admission is $10 each day / $15 weekend pass (weekend pass only $10 for MoCCA members)
The Puck Building, 293 Lafayette, New York, NY

Programming Schedule
Exhibitor List (Parsons Illustration will be sharing a table with Cat Lauigan at B45!)
Map of Exhibitors
Featured Artist Sketch Table Schedule (featuring Illustration Alum & Faculty Bob Sikoryak on Sunday!)

[MoCCA Art Festival poster art by Parsons Illustration Faculty Tara McPherson and DKC]

Tara McPherson News

In addition being interviewed (and providing the cover art) for the recent issue of Clutter Magazine (#12! Get your copy here!), Illustration Adjunct Faculty member Tara McPherson is keeping herself busy this summer. Here’s some of her upcoming events:

Sunday, June 8th, 2008: Tara will have a table at this year’s Museum of Contemporary Comic Art event.

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
MoCCA Art Festival 2008
June 7th-8th, 2008
The Puck Building
Hours: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Admission is $10 each day / $15 weekend pass (weekend pass only $10 for MoCCA members)

Meet comics and cartoon artists! Four full ballrooms of cartoonists and publishers! Three days of entertaining and educational panel sessions!

***

–Tara will also be a guest speaker in this years ICON 5 in NYC, along with Jordin Isip (another Illustration Faculty member!) and gallery-owner Jonathan Levine.

Gallery 101
Saturday, July 5, 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Martha Rich with Tara McPherson, Jordin Isip and Jonathan Levine

Here’s a description of the panel:

The increasing popularity and success of the small gallery has created a need for new, affordable and original art. Exhibiting in a gallery is a great way for illustrators to expand beyond traditional forms of illustration and generate additional income. How do you take that next step into the exhibiting world and get your work out of the studio and on the gallery wall? Illustrator Martha Rich questions gallery curator Jonathan Levine and illustrators Jordin Isip and Tara McPherson about the challenges and successes connected to their gallery experiences. Curious about showing your work in galleries, curating your own shows or developing a new line of revenue and expanding your creativity? This session is for you.

***

Tara will also be at Comic-Con 2008: July 24-27 in San Diego!