I am tickled many shades of pink, mauve and fuchsia today as the newest installment of What Are You Reading? on Robot 6 at Comic Book Resources has me as a special guest!  Check it out and find out what Tim O’Shea, Sean T. Collins, Tom Bondurant and Yours Truly have to say about the latest and greatest in comics today!

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Last WonderCon, NPR Producer Stephanie Foo had one question on her mind:  What was the first superhero that you created?  She asked this question to many comic book artists and Stephenny Godfrey and I were included in her project (I found it rather serendipitous that she wanted to know about the heroes I created as a kid as I am drawing them now as an adult for my self-published memoir fantasy comic Princess Witch Boy). A week later, Stephanie wrote us, asking for images from our childhood to be used in a slideshow to compliment the interviews!

I found Stephanie’s project to be quite extraordinary and I was excited that the pop culture zeitgeist of comics had reached National Public Radio in such a way as to warrant its own segment, but I had no idea about the level of comic brilliance in which Stephenny and I would be included!   I have been a fan of David Mack ever since my first issue of Kabuki and the art of Paul Maybury is super inspirational (I’ve even blogged about him)! I adore Miriam Libicki and have much love for my fellow compatriot in Writers Old Fashioned Stephenny Godfrey!  In fact, all of the creators involved are amazing and everyone shares some great stories!   Listen to the interviews and watch the artist slideshow which compares the artists’ childhood drawings with their adult work.  Episode 107 of Snap Judgment has more stories tied to the theme of Superheroes: Origin Stories.

Check out my blog for images of my childhood drawings paired with their modern counterparts.

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Greetings, Dear Comic Aficionados!

This coming Saturday, January 30, 2010, Writers Old Fashioned member STORM will be cavorting with an amazing group of comic book luminaries at Wicked Grounds for a Kinky Comics Carnival!  Read about who will be there and what delightful works they have done below in an invitation from the lovely and talented Serena Valentino:

Wicked Grounds invites you to join us for an afternoon social that you do not want to miss, a gathering of local artists, writers and comic creators coming together at San Francisco’s first and only Kink Cafe, Wicked Grounds, located at 289 8th Street @ Folsom in San Francisco at 2:00 PM, Saturday January 30th.

So please join Justin Hall, Tristan Crane, Ted Naifeh, STORM, Greta Christina, Serena Valentino and the lovelies at Wicked Grounds, to have a cup of tea or coffee as well as some of their other scrumptious offering while you sample our creative wares Saturday, Jan 30th. We will all have an assortment of our work available for purchase, and we will of course be available to sign them, that is, if you fancy that sort of thing.

__Justin Hall__ is an award-winning comic book creator best known for his series True Travel Tales, Glamazonia the Uncanny Super Tranny, and the gay porn Hard To Swallow Comics. His work has appeared in the Houghton Miflin Best American Comics, Boy Trouble, Best Erotic Comics, and the S.F. Bay Guardian, among others.

__STORM__ is a San Francisco based writer, artist, oracle & doll shaman. He sells funny books at the Isotope Comic Book Lounge & reads X-Men Tarot at Swankety Swank. His one of a kind art dolls and mini-comic Princess Witch Boy are for sale at http://www.facebook.com/l/1f79f;stormantic.etsy.com. STORM believes that in a perfect world, Iman would have played Ororo Munroe in the movies. Visit his blog at www.stormantic.com.

__Serena Valentino__ has been weaving tales that combine mythos and guile for the past ten years with her work on the comic book series GloomCookie and Nightmares & Fairy Tales published with SLG Publishing. Nightmares & Fairy Tales: 1140 Rue Royale has earned her critical acclaim in both the comic and horror domain, where she is known for her unique style of storytelling, bringing her readers into exquisitely frightening worlds filled with terror, beauty and extraordinary female protagonists. Among her other projects, Serena is currently writing a horror screenplay with writer/director Phil Flores (of the Butcher Brothers), as well as three new graphic novels, Enchanted, Blackbird the Pirate Queen and Hells Café and has writtena novel for young adults for Disney Press based on the Wicked Queen from Snow White entitled Fairest of All, now available in all major bookstores. Visit her website serenavalentino.com

__Tristan Crane__ is a San Francisco based writer and photographer. Tristan’s writing has appeared in the recent ‘Comic book Tattoo’ project from Image comics, his first book ‘How Loathsome’ was released in 2004 to many reviews and general muttering; a second graphic novel, ‘InVisible’ with artist Rhea Silvan was published by Seven Seas early in 2009. As a photographer, Tristan specializes in erotic portraiture, bondage sessions, documentary-style photojournalism, and enjoys collaborating with a wildly diverse cast of models.

__Greta Christina__ is editor of the annual “Best Erotic Comics” series, published by Last Gasp Books and Comics, where she has worked for seven years. She has been writing about sex since 1989, and has had sex writing appear in numerous magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, including Ms., Penthouse, On Our Backs, AlterNet, and three volumes of “Best American Erotica.” She blogs about sex, atheism, politics, and other polite dinner- table topics at the cleverly- named Greta Christina’s Blog, gretachristina.typepad.com.

After making a name for himself drawing Serena Valentino’s Gloomcookie in 1999, __TED NAIFEH__ went on to produce several popular all ages comics. The spooky adventure series Courtney Crumrin follows a grumpy little girl whose great uncle Aloysius draws her into a dark world of witchcraft and creatures that go bump in the night. Courtney Crumrin has been optioned by Dreamworks to be made into a motion picture. Polly and the Pirates tells the tale of prim and proper Polly Pringle, who gets kidnapped by pirates, only to discover her own natural, possibly inherited propensity for swashbuckling. Ted also lent his artistic skills to a comic adaptation of the videogame Death Junior, about a little boy whose father is the Grim Reaper. More importantly, Ted co-wrote and illustrated How Loathsome with Tristan Crane. A stylish, sexy exploration of the alternative lifestyle underground of San Francisco, How Loathsome explores gender, community, and how they affect identity. Currently, Ted is illustrating The Good Neighbors, an urban fantasy YA graphic novel series by New York Times best-selling author Holly Black, about a teenage girl who realizes that she’s half faerie. Volume 3 of the series will appear in October, 2010.

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The majesty and mayhem that was WonderCon has left us both invigorated and exhausted! We loved the crowds, the costumes and the camaraderie, but we didn’t do so much of the sleeping. However, it was great to be immersed in so much writerly and artistic talent! You inspire us to new heights! A big THANK YOU to all the folks who came by the Writers Old Fashioned booth in Artist’s Alley!

That’s Jason McNamara, Emily Stackhouse and Matt Silady in the picture above! Check out the links below to see what we were up to all weekend:

David Brothers covers WonderCon Day 1 & Day 2:

http://www.4thletter.net/?p=961

http://www.4thletter.net/?p=984

Matt Silady reveals his “triple threat” plans for 2008:

http://tinyurl.com/2794zv

Newsarama shows us some love:

http://tinyurl.com/ywd8uj

Newsarama writes about the Isotope party for Darwyn Cooke (check out our very own Danger Bob working a Writers Old Fashion-able t-shirt):

http://tinyurl.com/2kgwlc
Pictures from the Isotope party honoring Ben Templesmith & Antony Johnston :

http://tinyurl.com/2xqphy
Pictures from the Isotope party honoring Darwyn Cooke:

http://tinyurl.com/2g236a

Whew! That’s a wrap, folks! See you next year!

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In this book, Wolf recounts how her father, Leonard Wolf, was an inspiration for her. She gives the reader very personal glimpses into their relationship and family history. It’s a cozy book. You can almost feel the admiration that Wolf has for her father drip off the pages. For the first three chapters, I had a hard time with the narrative voice of the book. I didn’t yet feel connected to the sage-like figure that Wolf was building up her father to be. In chapter four, entitled “Speak in Your Own Voice,” I felt a narrative shift. All the cutesy descriptions of what Leonard wore and how Wolf’s children acted started to feel more grounded, more relevant. All the threads about Wolf’s childhood, her adult responsibilities and worries about her future started to weave together. By page 90, Wolf’s literary education really shines. Check out this passage:

“In Leonard’s youth, truth had not yet been deconstructed. Since the trend of poststructuralism entered the universities in the 1980s, young writers have been taught that it is naive and even politically suspect to believe in universal values or stories that can touch anyone’s heart; nothing, they are taught, is inherently true. Humanism has been demonized as “secular humanism” by the religious right–as if faith in art and people’s creative potential rules out faith in God–and it has been derided as passe and irrelevant by the Marxist and feminist academic left, who dismiss it as playing down difference of race, class, and gender in its commitment to a human point of view that can transcend all such divisions.”

Wow. As someone who really appreciates deconstruction and humanism, I found Wolf’s writing to be thought provoking. Can we find universal truth in literature? Is it enough to say, yes, truth is subjective, but some aspects of the human experience are universal? Can literature be “a bridge between human beings” or is it “a map of oppressive power relations” in today’s current academia? (91)

The chapter titles in “The Treehouse” come from the lessons that Wolf’s father taught in his classes (and are the lessons she asks him to teach her while working on her daughter’s treehouse). They are veritable gems of sagaciousness, simple and direct, but undeniably powerful nonetheless. Give “The Treehouse” a read and let me know what you think.

Also, while perusing the internet for Naomi Wolf, I found this interesting article entitled, “The Porn Myth.” Consider this quote, taken out of context from the two page article:

“For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”

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Thanks to all of you for your support and enthusiasm!  Now on to the next project!

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