Shameless Self-Promotion

Sat - June 30, 2007

Introducing Scott McCloud

[ Photo courtesy Shawn Levy.]

This has been one of the most busy-cool weeks of my career. In addition to the usual day-job stuff:

Friday-Saturday, June 22-23: I volunteer at two charity screenings.

Sunday, June 24: I lead a workshop.

Monday-Saturday, June 25-30: I am a festival juror.

Tuesday, June 26: Dark Horse gives a friendly nod to "Serenity Tales."

Thursday, June 28: My work is displayed among flayed corpses. And

Thursday, June 28: I get to introduce one of my heroes.

That last one was a doozy. Scott McCloud -- the absolute guru of comics theory -- is touring all 50 states with his family to promote his new book Making Comics. He popped in at Wieden + Kennedy to give an amazing 700-slide PowerPoint lecture on the theory, history and future of the art form. (Shawn Levy blogged about this sold-out event here.) And PNCA asked me to warm up the audience by basically geeking out on the guy for three minutes.

For posterity's sake, you can read that geek-out after the jump. There will not be a test later.

continued ...

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Hello. My name is Mike Russell. I draw a non-fiction comic strip for The Oregonian called "CulturePulp." And the PNCA has very graciously given me a chance to introduce one of my heroes.

So: Why is Scott McCloud important? Why are we here?

I think it boils down to this:

A lot of people who make comics spend a lot of time worrying about their careers (or their imagined careers).

Scott McCloud spends a lot of time worrying about the career of COMICS ITSELF, as a medium.

Mr. McCloud is a wonderful narrative storyteller, but he's most famous for creating three non-fiction comic books ABOUT comics. Taken together, the trilogy of UNDERSTANDING COMICS, REINVENTING COMICS and MAKING COMICS is extraordinary -- and almost totally unprecedented.

Over 700 meticulously crafted pages, these three books explore the nature, history, future, vocabulary, and practical creation of comic strips and books. Comics are the easiest form of writing to read and the hardest form of writing to write. And in his books, Scott McCloud explains exactly why. He takes the medium apart and studies it like a pocketwatch. He reveals what he calls "the secret language of comics" -- that is, the massive number of decisions about layout, writing, art and choice of moment that go into every panel and page.

And he's revealing that secret language while EMPLOYING that secret language. This seems like an obvious idea until you realize that no one had quite done it before Scott McCloud -- or at least not done it for 700-plus freaking pages.

I've heard people at Pixar talk about the concept of "sprezzatura" -- an Italian phrase that means "concealing your effort." If you distill your work to its essence and don't show off, the work tends to radiate with power. Scott McCloud totally embodies sprezzatura. Break down any one of his pages and you realize he's spent dozens if not hundreds of hours of research, consideration and effort on every single clearly and simply rendered idea. It was probably terrifying to write. And it will endure for centuries.

McCloud has been called a "pop scholar." But when you consider what goes into every page, the term very quickly seems inadequate.

Finally, Scott McCloud is ALSO important because he's generous. He's a guru to the next generation of print and web cartoonists, many of whom recently moved to Portland (and are, apparently, in the audience tonight). His books have inspired people who don't "Draw the Marvel Way" to realize they can contribute meaningfully to the medium working within their own vocabulary -- a vocabulary Scott McCloud helped define for them. He shares ideas and welcomes counter-arguments. At every turn, he tries to transform the lonely process of making comics into a community event -- as when he invented a now-popular endurance contest called "The 24-Hour Comic" that is every bit as horrifying as it sounds.

And he's currently acting as a sort of Johnny ComicsSeed: He and his family have been touring the nation, visiting all 50 states, leading workshops and making introductions. He's even gotten his family into the act: His daughters have produced a disarming series of video interviews for the Web with famous cartoonists they've met along the way.

Everything about comics is better with this man in the world, and we're lucky to have him. Please give a warm welcome to Scott McCloud.
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ScottMcCloud.com

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Posted at 03:00 PM

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Sat - December 16, 2006

Nine people wrote thoughtful, trenchant webcomics analysis. I mostly geeked out on 'Achewood.'

The webcomics blog Comixpedia invited me to contribute to their mammoth "End of 2006 Roundtable."

And so I finally got to go all fanboy on the best story I've read in webcomics -- hell, one of the better stories I've read in comics, period: Achewood's amazing "Great Outdoor Fight" arc, which starts here and spends over two months spinning a ridiculous, hilarious and oddly thrilling yarn about what happens when you mix "3 Days, 3 Acres, and 3,000 Men." (I liked it so much, I bought the t-shirt.)

But mostly, I learned a lot from all the other, wiser Roundtable contributors -- an amazing lineup that includes Eric Millikin, Daku, Gilead Pellaeon, Lewis Powell, Alexander Danner, Eric Burns, Michael Rouse-Deane, Johanna Draper Carlson and Gary Tyrrell.

The Comixpedia End of 2006 Roundtable
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Posted at 09:33 PM

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Tue - October 31, 2006

CORT AND FATBOY: I 'Saw III' at midnight. Meh.

'Saw III' didn't screen for critics, but I wanted to talk about it on last Friday's 'Cort and Fatboy' broadcast.

So sometime after 11 p.m. on Thursday night, I drove out to a midnight preview. There were like 40 or 50 people there. (I was stunned that 40 or 50 people would go to that kind of trouble for a 'Saw' film.) Anyway, it was an astoundingly disjointed and just plain blah experience in all respects -- I'm not at all surprised to hear fans are booing it off the screen -- and my reward was getting to appear on the radio with about four hours of sleep under my belt. You can hear the results here.

One thing I meant to say on the radio, but forgot to mention: "Saw"'s conceit makes each new installment exponentially more ludicrous. As "Saw" fans know, the villain is a rapidly degenerating brain-cancer patient (Tobin Bell) with a reedy, ex-junkie assistant (Shawnee Smith) -- but the need to have ever more elaborate Rube Goldberg torture puzzles in each installment means that as this guy gets sicker, his workload gets bigger. There's a shot in "Saw III" where you see a workshop containing literally dozens of torture machines in progress under flourescent lights in a studio the size of a parking garage, and all you can think is, "How?!"

Cort and Fatboy (Friday, Oct. 27, 2006)

AND PREVIOUSLY: My reviews of "Saw" and "Saw II."

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Posted at 09:10 PM

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Fri - September 1, 2006

CORT AND FATBOY: The movies they didn't want critics to see

Tonight on "Cort and Fatboy":

Thursday night, 10 p.m.: I drive to the outskirts of Portland to catch the only preview screening of "The Wicker Man."

Thursday night, 10 p.m.: Eric D. Snider drives to a locked mall to catch the only preview screening of "Crank."

Friday night, 6:15 p.m.: We compare notes.

One of the movies is entertaining. The other features Nicolas Cage fighting a pagan cult in a bear suit.

Cort and Fatboy (Sept. 1, 2006)

Posted at 10:47 PM

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Mon - August 28, 2006

CORT AND FATBOY: 'Beerfest' and 'Transformers' ...

Because Lord knows I haven't had quite enough posts about "Beerfest" on this site lately: Now I'm talking about it on "Cort and Fatboy."

We also discuss "Transformers" nostalgia -- and how little that nostalgia is serviced by the Bionicle-inflected Autobot and Decepticon designs for Michael Bay's upcoming movie.

Why, yes -- I'm a thirtysomething male discussing whether Michael Bay can possibly do justice to a film about a robot that turns into a truck.

(Luckily, Cort trumps me hard in the nerd department by owning a letterman's jacket with a dinner-plate-sized Transformers patch on the back. God it's beautiful.)

Cort and Fatboy (Aug. 25, 2006)

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Fri - August 18, 2006

CORT AND FATBOY: 'Snakes' in a roundtable

Tonight's "Cort and Fatboy" appearance is online.

We debrief on "Snakes on a Plane" and give "Accepted" a little love. The lads also scored a solid interview with Lewis Black.

Cort and Fatboy (Aug. 18, 2006)

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Fri - August 4, 2006

I actually see more movies than Cort and Fatboy think I do. But do KUFO listeners really care what I thought of 'Aquamarine'?

My latest "Cort and Fatboy" appearance is online.

Discussed: "The Descent." Special guest Eric D. Snider drops by to chat up "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

Cort and Fatboy (Aug. 4, 2006)

Posted at 10:26 PM

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Sat - July 29, 2006

By the way, 'Fatboy' isn't fat at all

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I'm still talking about movies on KUFO's "Cort and Fatboy" show for a few minutes every Friday around 6:10 p.m. It's fun. Cort and Fatboy are splendid fellows, and occasionally I bring along writerly friends to talk about movies I haven't seen yet.

Here are links to my last few appearances. There won't be a test later.

Friday, July 28 -- I talk about "John Tucker Must Die." Special guest Eric D. Snider lays into "Miami Vice."

Friday, July 21 -- I review "Monster House" and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend."

Friday, July 14 -- Talking "A Scanner Darkly" and "You, Me and Dupree."

Friday, July 7 -- A contrarian review of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

Friday, June 30 -- A "Superman Returns" roundtable with special guest Dawn Taylor.

The boys are also putting on a midnight screening of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" that's probably going to be rowdy as hell (if their midnight screening of "Aliens" that I attended -- and could barely hear over the din -- is any indication).

Cort and Fatboy (KUFO-FM)

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Posted at 12:28 PM

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Wed - June 21, 2006

Multi Quotin' Margo

One of my favorite websites is The Comics Curmudgeon -- a blog dedicated to the fine art of over-scrutinizing daily newspaper strips.

They're a little hung up on the soap-opera strip "Apartment 3-G" -- particularly on the strip's sarcastic super-vixen, Margo:

Anyway. There was a contest. I entered it.

(Here's the super-high-rez version if anyone wants it for their coffee mug or whatever.)

Finger Quotin' Margo lookalike contest MADNESS (The Comics Curmudgeon)

Posted at 10:57 PM

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Fri - May 5, 2006

Free Comic Book Day! 'Gimp'-dump! Saturday!

1. As part of tomorrow's (Saturday, May 6) Free Comic Book Day festivities, I'll be hanging out at Cosmic Monkey Comics (10227 NE Clackamas St., Portland; 503-253-2752) from noon to 3 p.m. -- selling our remaining stack of "Santa's Lil' Gimp" books for an astonishingly low price.

Feel free to drop by if you want to talk "CulturePulp," "Gimp," or whatever. (Do not bring pie.)

There will also be vastly better artists than myself on hand -- Colleen Coover and Root Nibot ("Banana Sunday" and "Small Favors"), Jeff Parker ("Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four," "The Interman") and Devon Devereaux ("Tales of Hot Rod Horror").

Also, I'm told there will be Stormtroopers.

2. Oh, and I'll be on "Cort and Fatboy" around 6 this evening, talking movies.

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Posted at 10:58 AM

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FriendPimp '06! 'Little Dee,' 'Pink Five,' 'Cort and Fatboy'

And thus ends the only weekend in my life ...

The Last Screening Job! 'Big Damn Group Photo' screening of 'Serenity'! With beer! This Thursday!

Last-gasp, big-screen 'Serenity' screening! With beer!

'True Portland Comics' panel at Stumptown Comics Fest this Saturday

Shall we hitch a ride on Cintra Wilson's literary achievement?

The Famous Mysterious TV appearance

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: 'Comics journalism' at the Eccentric Observer and DuranDuran.com

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: CulturePulp in the Columbia Journalism Review

Welcome back, Editor & Publisher readers

I'll be on KBOO radio Tuesday morning