Art Spiegelman

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I saw him yesterday afternoon, giving at talk at Dartmouth. He was mostly showing slides from In the Shadow of No Towers, but also gave a kind-of Comics 101 lesson. He showed some slides from Krazy Kat, talked about the start of Mad Magazine, the architecture of a comics page, etc etc. He seems really smart and is going to be teaching at The Center for Cartoon Studies that’s opening here next fall. He said that for a long time, whenever he had to draw a telephone, he had to draw a rotary one (even though everyone was using the push-button ones). If he had drawn a push button one, it would have looked like it was from a Buck Rogers sci-fi futuristic story. I thought that was so interesting. I would really like to take some of the classes there, but I think you have to be either fully enrolled or not go there at all.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 19 November 2004 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I read about a panel he was on and it was announced beforehand that while the building/event was normally no-smoking, , Spiegelman had some sort of medical condition that required him to be able to smoke. What the fuck's up with that? What sort of medical condition requires one to suck the cancer dick?

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Friday, 19 November 2004 14:20 (twenty-one years ago)

"i have a medical condition which requires me to hate and ph34r women" - d.sim
"i have a medical condition which requires me blowhard and suXoR simultaneously" - h.ellison
"i have a medical condition which requires me to be overrated" - a.moore

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 19 November 2004 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard it was just a I'M A BIG COMIX SLEB AND THEE ONLY WAY TO GET ME TO LECTURE AT YOUR PIDDLING SCHOOL IS IF YOU LET ME LIGHT UP IN CLASS thing.

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Friday, 19 November 2004 16:17 (twenty-one years ago)

perhaps he's a MUTANT and needs nicotine merely to survive

― Mark C (Markco), Friday, 19 November 2004 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

"What sort of medical condition requires one to suck the cancer dick?"

Addiction.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 19 November 2004 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

This is not the thread I expected to find. I am pleased.

― Huk-L, Friday, 19 November 2004 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Art S. may be too, in his cynical New York way.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 19 November 2004 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, he was smoking during the lecture. I was a tad late getting there and saw him gesturing with an unlit cig. I thought, "So, he's a smoker and feels better holding one-" Then he lit it. And had another while he was answering questions. I didn't have a problem with it I think the people sitting one foot away from him might have.

The only problem I had with him was that after, when he had signed my book and pushed it back toward me, I said, "It was a very good talk you gave," he just nodded at me like I know and turned to the person behind me. Let me tell you, there were only about 40 (MAX) people waiting to have books signed and I've talked to authors who have had 200 people in line and are more personable, wanting to talk with you a bit. I've got no love for Art after last night.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 19 November 2004 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The Red Skull + Art Spiegelman: Super-Villain Team-Up!
http://www.johnnyr.com/comix/SYBW2004-10-25.html

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Friday, 19 November 2004 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw him do a talk at UC Santa Cruz a couple years back: he said he gets nervous talking in front of audiences, and refuses to speak anywhere that doesn't allow him to toke a relieving cig during the lecture.

The result was, the lecture was simulataneously broadcast to another hall next door, where audience members who were offended by his smoking could take refuge. "Next year, yhey're going to make me wear a yellow patch with a cigarette on it," Art said (presumably a rehearsed line for every venue, but funny anyway.)

Anyway, don't knock Art -- he maybe a jerk, but he's the kind of jerk I'd want to be (if I wanted to be a jerk.) And, uh, Maus.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Friday, 19 November 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

That Johnny Ryan strip is so perfect. "In the Shadow of No Towers" is ridculously self important and dull.

― ng, Friday, 19 November 2004 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

i got to interview him for the local ragtag daily, i think i spent half the time talking about garbage pail kids. he seemed cool, i know alot of people hate him for various reasons, and i didn't put maus on my ballot (though i could've), but him and his wife got alot of people into the new yorker and that gig, even/esp. just the illustrating work, probably pays the rent for alot of my favorite comic book guys. i wish he was still there, their covers could use some more venom.

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that one Radiohead illo that Jaime Hernandez did probably paid more than a whole issue of L&R.

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

"i know alot of people hate him for various reasons"

Yeah, but Ted Rall isn't always the most trustworthy of people on these sorts of subjects.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 19 November 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

ted rall is the worst cartoonist in the world, so no, he really isn't.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 20 November 2004 00:37 (twenty-one years ago)

maus is the worst kind of bathetic kitsch, esp. in how it exploits shoah for his own gain, and from everything ive read about him hes a fucking blowhard, a rather useless and silly little man who works v. hard at making sure his friends and realtions get a hand up (cf his wife as editor of the new yorker front covers)

― anthony, Saturday, 20 November 2004 10:37 (twenty-one years ago)

er, she got that job before he worked for the New Yorker, and has held it for years and years since he stopped working for them. is "everything you've read about him" written by Ted Rall perchance?

― kit brash (kit brash), Sunday, 21 November 2004 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

thats fair, and im sorry--i didnt know that.
(no, it isnt by ted rall.)

maus i think is still explotive and overly sentimental+oddly self aggrandazing, and he hasnt done anything interesting since.

― anthony, Monday, 22 November 2004 08:14 (twenty-one years ago)

maus i think is still explotive and overly sentimental+oddly self aggrandazing

Could it have been done any other way, though?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 22 November 2004 19:34 (twenty-one years ago)

We interrupt this thread for a SPECIAL ILC POLL request:

Can someone do me a comment on Maus* and send it to my gmail address, viz freakytrigger at etc etc. It has been years since I read the thing and have nothing to say about it. I'll print anything I get (barring any N@z1 lurkers or similar disasters).

*OK this is a spoiler, poll fans, but I don't think it'll be a huge surprise to anyone that it's somewhere in the Top 15...

Thanks!

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 22 November 2004 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

I just got the Wacky Packages book. I have an uncut sheet of Wackies, laminated, on my cube wall. I never knew this was Spiegelman!

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:01 (seventeen years ago)

This comes with the book, with a few others:

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/7626/imageuploadimagezx2.jpg

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:03 (seventeen years ago)

Whatever else you might say about Spiegelman, he deserves as much of the credit for Wacky Packages as anyone. For that alone, he'll always have my respect.

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:34 (seventeen years ago)

(The original) Wacky Packages were absolute and total genius. SOOO much better than any and all of the gutless wannabe successors, like Garbage Pail Kids or whatever.

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:37 (seventeen years ago)

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/4897/wpsjj3.jpg

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:43 (seventeen years ago)

Where'd you get that, anyway?

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:48 (seventeen years ago)

Stupid.com found a cache of them a few years ago, and sold them for $20 each.

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:51 (seventeen years ago)

I saw that sheet framed on some TV show recently, so it's found its way into a few prop closets too.

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 19:52 (seventeen years ago)

(The original) Wacky Packages were absolute and total genius. SOOO much better than any and all of the gutless wannabe successors, like Garbage Pail Kids or whatever.

Them's fightin' words...

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 20:44 (seventeen years ago)

Super Villain Team-up Starring Red Skull and Art Spiegelman
http://web.archive.org/web/20041026100632/http://johnnyr.com/images/SYBW2004-10-25.jpg

― Pylon Gnasher, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 21:14 (seventeen years ago)

Who is Johnny Ryan?

BORN 11/30/90
LOCATION Lives in Los Angeles, CA with foster family
EDUCATION Sophomore at Chester Leeway High School
FAVORITE BANDS Slipknot, Insane Clown Posse, Korn
FAVORITE ARTISTS Todd McFarlane, Frank Frazetta, Ben Katchor
FAVORITE WRESTLERS Dudley Boyz, Mr.Ass, Steven Richards
FAVORITE QUOTE School SUX!!!
FUTURE PLANS To go to college and get a degree in English Literature, then draw a comic that's published by Fantagraphics, and then hook up with a real hot red-headed babe.

― libcrypt, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 21:39 (seventeen years ago)

Ha! That Red Skull team-up is a bit much, but also somewhat OTM.

― Nhex, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 22:24 (seventeen years ago)

OMG LIBCRYPT I AM EXTRA MAD JEALOUS

COVET

― Abbott, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 04:54 (seventeen years ago)

"Hmm...It still doesn't seem boring enuff...I'll have to borify it by 30 percent!"

― Pylon Gnasher, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 07:12 (seventeen years ago)

libcrypt, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen. Where did you find it?

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 14:23 (seventeen years ago)

johnny ryan is great!

― remy bean, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 14:31 (seventeen years ago)

i gots an angry youth comix litho in my bathroom in LA

― remy bean, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 14:32 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.johnnyr.com/images/ncp2008-06-30.gif

― remy bean, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 14:32 (seventeen years ago)

I don't think he's really that young. Looks a lot older than 18

― Pylon Gnasher, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 18:00 (seventeen years ago)

Oilyrags: Somewhere 'round here: http://web.archive.org/web/20060202031259/johnnyr.com/comix/index.html

― libcrypt, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 18:15 (seventeen years ago)

excellent! Thank you.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 18:21 (seventeen years ago)

four years pass...

no hirschfeld thread, so i'll just post this here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOBHGWLfr-M

incredible how lively and lucid he was at 97

― WheatusVEVO (Hungry4Ass), Saturday, 18 August 2012 11:56 (thirteen years ago)

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