The Sunday Spotlight: The ‘It Just Isn’t Normal… Heat Like This’ Edition
by Richard Bruton
Turn up the air-con (if you have it/if you need it), settle back with something cold – it’s Sunday, time for the Sunday Spotlight…
Congratulations to the Max and Moritz Prize Winners 2024… including the wonderful Kate Charlesworth…
At the recent 21st International Comic Salon Erlangen, the Max and Moritz Prize 2024 was awarded in nine categories. It’s the most important award for comic art and graphic literature in the German-speaking world. Here are those nine winners..
Best German-language comic artist: Anna Sommer
Best German-language comic: “Learning to fear” by Nando von Arb
Best international comic: “Listen, beautiful Márcia” by Marcello Quintanilha
Best non-fiction comic: “United Queerdom” by Kate Charlesworth
Best comic for children: “Boris, Babette and lots of skeletons” by Tanja Esch
Best German-language comic debut: “The last one puts out the light” by Tobias Aeschbacher
Audience award: “Not funny. Cartoons 2022–2024” by Joscha Sauer
Special jury prize: Barbara Yelin
Special prize for an outstanding life’s work: Joann Sfar
And a heartfelt congratulations to Kate Charlesworth whose incredibly entertaining and thoroughly exhaustive history of Btitish LGBTQ+ life and history, Sensible Footwear, in it’s German translation, United Queerdom, won for best non-fiction comic. If you haven’t read it yet, you can pick up copies in many languages, but it was published by Myriad Press in English.
.
Roz Chast wins the inaugural Thurber Prize For American Cartoon Art…
The Thurber Prize for American Humor is named for the late James Thurber, humor writer, cartoonist, and playwright of the 20th century. Yet in all the years it’s been awarding the prize – having begun in 1997 – the award has always been for prose or memoirs. Thankfully, that was remedied this year with the announcement of a new category to recognise the work of cartoonists – The Thurber Prize for American Humor in Cartoon Art.
And the first winner is the magnificent Roz Chast, cartoonist with the New Yorker since 1978.
News grabbed from The Daily Cartoonist, who grabbed it from Lisa Donnelly, who reported it thus…
‘Last year, Michael and I were instrumental in helping to establish the Thurber Prize for American Cartoon Art, partnering with Thurber House to pay tribute to the wonderful cartoons by James Thurber and celebrate the tradition of single panel cartoons.
‘This year, we are thrilled to announce that the Cartoon Art prize was given to the wonderful Roz Chast! Michael and I were honored to be the ones who handed out the award to her, after which she delivered a very funny acceptance speech and thank you.
‘The prize goes to someone who, like James Thurber, has shared her world view with unique drawings and masterfully written words. And tons of humor. Congrats, Roz!!’
.
Interview – Tim Bird at Broken Frontier talking Adrift on a Painted Sea from Avery Hill…
Running right now on Kickstarter, Avery Hill are to publish Tim Bird‘s latest – Adrift on a Painted Sea, later this year. If you want more of a look, I covered it here for Comicon. It’s mentioned as being an exploration of family, loss, and art through the author’s relationship with his mother, whose paintings are an integral part of the book.
Over at the always great Broken Frontier, fellow cartoonist and member of the Avery Hill family, Katriona Chapman, has an interview with Bird about so many different aspects of the creation of Adrift on a Painted Sea.
Here’s just one of Tim Bird’s excellent answers in a really fascinating interview…
‘I kept asking myself “what does the sea mean to my mum” as I was writing the book, and I could never settle on an answer. I think maybe that’s the point though. The sea can be a huge, horizonless place – a blank space that you can project anything onto, and it can reflect back an infinite number of different meanings. Or it can be a postcard-sized glimpse into the past. It changes constantly and means different things in different situations. It can be familiar and calming, or uncontrollable and frightening. One of the first things I drew for the book was a series of waves going in and out on a beach. I found that constant repetition of tides grounding – it seemed to put my sadness into a much larger context.’
Mike Collins’ 10 years storyboarding Doctor Who…
Congrats to artist Mike Collins, who’s been producing many storyboards for Doctor Who for the last 10 years! A great cartoonist and obviously a really rather fab storyboard artist to boot…
‘As of mid May, I’ve been storyboarding Doctor Who for 10 years! Now, I haven’t done every episode but I have done episodes in every season which is mindboggling. Where did the days go?! My very first episode was Flatline for Douglas Mackinnon’
And here’s a few of his very first boards…
.
The Kodansha Read Beyond The Anime Humble Bundle – expires 29 June 2024…
Another rather seriously big Humble Bundle deal right now, this time from Manga publisher Kodansha. You know the deal by now surely, sign up and buy various tiers and get a huge number of digital volumes, with the payment you make going to a customisable split between charity, the publisher, and Humble.
The Kodansha Humble Bundle has a huge number of titles and volumes on offer, all of which inspired the 2024 Spring & Summer anime seasons you may well have been watching.
The pay at least $1 bundle has five titles – Vampire Dormitory Vol 1, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest Vol 1, Wind Breaker Vol 1, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Vol 1, and I was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability Vol 1. And from there it just gets silly – the pay at least $10 bundle has 33 books in it, including those above, and 69 books, and the $30 bundle has 110 books for you.
The charity for the bundle here is Direct Relief, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has become one the world’s largest providers of medical relief in the world, operating in 50 states of the USA and in 70 countries.
The Read Beyond the Anime Humble Bundle ends 29 June – you can find out more at Kodansha here and go direct to the Humbel Bundle here.
.
For your audio/video pleasure – have you watched/listened to the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast recently?…
I think you know by now, what with all the Weekly 2000 AD and Monthly Megazine posts you’ve been reading, that I’m a big fan of 2000 AD. But I don’t think I’ve mentioned (at least not for a long time) the audio/visual bits of 2000 AD that come as the Thrill-Cast.
It had a bit of a hiatus last year but it’s back now with Mike Molcher and Steve Morris of 2000 AD sitting down and chatting with plenty of 2000 AD creators about all things comics. And there’s some really, really great listening/viewing to be found either as a podcast or on YouTube.
Just picking two recent ones, there’s an enthralling and wide-ranging 2hrs+ interview with Dan Abnett (or one of his clones at least) and an hour-long chat with Michael Carroll. Both are essential listening/viewing for anyone interested in comics and the way they’re made.
.
Congratulations to Scott Dunbier on ACT 4…
Scott Dunbier, since leaving IDW Publishing a couple of months back, has been teasing his latest venture for a little while – now it can be revealed what he hopes will be the last word on his professional career… ACT 4 Publishing.
Congrats to Scott and, given the man’s habit of being involved with the best and brightest and most innovative that US comics has to offer, it’s going to be fascinating to see what projects they’ll be announcing in six weeks. After all, this is the man who brought all kinds of great comics out, including Alan Moore’s America’s Best Comics line, not to mention introducing us to the shelf-destroying concept of Absolute editions. And at IDW, he was responsible for all manner of very special things as their special projects editor.
More on this as projects get announced, but here’s what Scott had to say…
‘A little over two months ago, I left my place of employment after more than 16 years. Six weeks from today, I’ll be announcing some projects coming next year from my newly formed company.
And today… Today I’m revealing publicly the name of that company for the first time. It will be my next step forward, and hopefully the last word on my professional career.
But first, a brief history. I see my career in four acts. My first act was art dealing—I was finding my path through my love of comic art. My second act was WildStorm/DC—expanding that love in a different and more personal way. My third act was IDW Publishing—things were coming into focus and I was honing my craft. ACT 4 PUBLISHING. Living and dying on my own merits, betting on myself. My fourth act. Clarity.’
