BEA ’08:Comics All Day Saturday
Book Expo America program director Mark Dressler announced that comics and graphic novels will be the focus on Saturday, May 31 during next year’s BEA in Los Angeles. The 2008 Book Expo America will be held May 29-June 1 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
APE Moves to November
The Alternative Press Expo (APE) has been moved to November 1-2, 2008. APE was previously held in the spring. The date change was due to an inability to get dates at the location in April. More information about APE can be found at the show's website. Also, Top Spurgeon has an interview with David Glanzer about the date change at The Comics Reporter blog.
ICv2 Confab For NYAF
ICv2 is holding a conference on Anime and Manga, "Inside the Otaku Generation," at the New York Anime Festival. The New York Anime Festival will be held December 7-9 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. The ICv2 conference will be held Thursday afternoon on December 6th. More information about the conference and panelist who will be in attendance can be found at the NYAF website.
Auction for Disabled Vets
Jimmy Grownley, the creator of Amelia Rules!, is organizing an art auction to benefit the Disabled American Veterans. All the original art for the new volume of Amelia Rules! will be auctioned off, along with art by Terry Moore, Greg Evans, and Batton Lash. Other artists are invited to donate original artwork for the auction. The auction will take place on eBay, beginning Veterans Day. To donate art work contact Jimmy Grownley, a contact link is at the Amelia Rules! website.
TV Grabs The Middleman
The Middleman, a graphic novel published by Viper Comics, is being made into a one-hour pilot for ABC Family. Matt Keeslar and Natalie Morales will star in it. The comic was written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and illustrated by Les McClaine; they story revolves around a struggling artist who is recruited by a secret agent to fight villains.
DMP Club Otakie Contest
Digital Manga Publishing is creating a new mail catalogue, Club Otakie. To promote the catalogue, DMP will be giving out prizes for signing up each week until December 17, 2007. A total of thirty prizes will be given out, including iPod Suffles, Nintendo DS Lites, and $25 MasterCard Gift Cards. Contestants will be eligible to win a prize each week they are signed up to the catalogue. More information about the contest can be found at the Digital Manga website.
Matt Groening on TCM
Matt Groening will be co-hosting Turner Classic Movies' prime time schedule on Wednesday November 14th. Groening's appearance is part of TCM's "Guest Programmer Month," in which a different guest chooses and introduces the movies each night. Groening picked "Blues in the Night," Way Out West," Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus," and "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang." More information can be found at the TCM website.
NBM Debuts Trondheim Blog
NBM is launching a blog to promote the upcoming publication of acclaimed French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim’s Little Nothings, a book collecting the one-page cartoon musings from Trondheim’s own blog.. The cartoons capture Trondheim’s paranoia, his big and little annoyances as well as his love of comics and impressions from his travels around the world. The book, Little Nothings Vol. 1: The Curse of the Umbrella, will be published in January.
First Second Creators Blog
First Second is running a new feature on their blog in which one of their creators writes, draws, or writes and draws a piece on comics. There will be a new feature every Monday; the most recent feature focused on poetry in comics.
OSU Cartoon Fest
Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library is hosting the ninth triennial Festival of Cartoon Art. The focus of the festival is "Graphic Storytelling," and the festival will be held on October 25-27, 2007. Since 2007, marks the centennial of the birth of Milton Caniff, whose papers and art was the founding collection of the Cartoon Research Library, the festival will begin with a celebration of his life and legacy. Guests at the festival include Jessica Able, Paul Pope, Alison Bechdel, P. Craig Russel, and many others. More information about the Festival of Cartoon Art can be found at the festival's website.
