Roof Poem

A roof reading of "Eighteen to Thirty-One," a poem from my new chapbook The Best of All Possible Worlds. I did this reading on the last day of my writing residency at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse in Pittsburgh, PA.

Other News:

* Anne Elizabeth Moore and Gabrielle Gamboa posted an interview with Alison Bechdel that I helped transcribe at Truthout: Parts 1, 2, 3.
* The Cyberpunk Apocalypse promo-ed an end-of-residency reading I did with Tatyana Kagamas at the North Side Library in Pittsburgh, PA.
* Bad at Sports blurbed Samantha Rehark's show at ACRE.
* The C******* A**** blurbed the Hive Dwellers show at Skylab.
* The third issue of Pop Serial is up, and Alt-Lit officially has a Wikipedia page now.
* This 1996 article from the Onion about an OSU professor refers to a bong as a "sky lab."
* After the jump is an email poem Peterbd sent me re: me/Skrillex

Skyblab Episode #1

Skylab Gallery has a new podcast, Skyblab, that aims to keep "the public" abreast of our goings-on.

Download it here.

The first episode features an interview with University of Florida Professor of Film and Media Studies Roger Beebe about his "Films for One to Eight Projectors" performance; a reading by SAIC Professor and Fulbright scholar Anne Elizabeth Moore from her new book Cambodian Grrrl: Self-publishing in Phnom Penh, and a performance by poet and curator of The Ohio State University libraries' Avant Writing Collection John M. Bennett. 

 It's all topped off with a drunken review of Jeffrey Eugenides's new book The Marriage Plot by Tatyana Kagamas and music by Angels in America, Envelope featuring Nikki Portman, and Jack Ramunni & Alex Ross.

And Donewaiting.com posted it here.

Orange Alert Podcast 64, Gender and Comics Potluck Posters

A recording of my May 15th reading at The Whistler is included in the new Orange Alert podcast. Twin Shadow, Carrie Lorig, and other sundry audio items are in the mix as well. 

In other news, a poster version of the Bitch Magazine article I assisted Anne Elizabeth Moore and Esther Pearl Watson with, ""Gender and Comics Potluck: A Graphic Survey of Where Women and Trans People are - and aren't - in the Comics Industry," is now available as a series of silk-screened posters - right here.

Graphic Ladies Tumble

Women's Comics Anthology, a zine I edited with Anne Elizabeth Moore, was tumbled on Graphic Ladies, a site maintained by Erin Polgreen.

And it was retumbled on Comics Girl.

She's Got the Right Stuff

In the current issue of Bitch Magazine (#49, The Confidential Issue), Anne Elizabeth Moore, Esther Pearl Watson and I have an article entitled "Gender and Comics Potluck: A graphic survey of where women and trans people are - and aren't - in the comics industry." Said article has been included in the current show at Medialia Gallery in New York, NY.

The Medialia Gallery show is called She's Got the Right Stuff: Favorites from the Comics Medium, and is curated by Tara Nakashima Donahue. It's actually closing this coming Saturday, February 26th, so I encourage you to go peruse it in all haste, if geographically possible. 

Find photos of the exhibit after 'the jump.'

MRR Reviews The Lose The Tude 7-Inch

From Maximum Rock And Roll 331:

'Feeling cynical and wary about modern music? Think everything is just rehashing old sounds? Well, LOSE THE TUDE is on the scene to help remedy the situation. These dudes throw down swift and snotty hardcore, but at the same time there are such variances in style thrown in that you really couldn't pinpoint them in any category. The songs lie somewhere between humor and conviction and give just as many nods to FUGAZI as they do the CIRCLE JERKS. The lyrics are sometimes significant and occasionally bizarre, but always shouted with a peculiar cynical earnestness. There might be a bit too much of the shouted dual vocals for my taste but everything else going on here--the guitar work especially--makes up for that. I can't make up my mind if I really like this or will never listen to it again; I've already played the record like eight times this weekend, though--does that mean something? (BG) (Bob Goldie?)'

You can order the 7-inch from Sacred Plague Records. There are also two copies left at Magnolia Thunderpussy Records in Columbus, Ohio.

In other news, Art21, the great PBS series on contemporary art, posted an interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore on its blog. Moore recently received a Fulbright grant for her work encouraging Cambodian women to self-publish zines about their lives.

Moore's installation entitled Garment Work, which  interpolates her personal relationship history with the socio-economic history of garment manufacturing in Germany and Cambodia, is currently on-going at Meta House in Phnom Penh. It has yet to be shown in the U.S. Garment Work also opens this week in Chicago, Illinois, at DOVA Temporary as part of the Our Demons exhibition.

Also, Ok Ikumi, with special guest star vocals from Kari Jorgensen, covered Billy Bragg's 'A New England,' which you can download here. It has my favorite lyrics of Bragg's this side of 'Between Marx and Marzipan in the dictionary, there was Mary.' 

Bitch: Winter 2010 Issue

The Winter 2010 issue of Bitch Magazine is out and about. It has an article I assisted Anne Elizabeth Moore and Esther Pearl Watson with called, "Gender and Comics Potluck: A graphic survey of where women and trans people are - and aren't - in the comics industry." 

It's something of a companion piece to Women's Comics Anthology, a zine I co-edited with Moore earlier this year. Both pieces are part of a larger project interrogating the gender inequality in comics that Moore has been exploring with her Lady Drawers class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

You can find Bitch Magazine, like, anywhere. It's even in real life places like Barnes and Noble, but, really, you should just subscribe. 

ITALIAN VISTAS

Venice.

Aarthi Suguness and I captured photos of graffiti and other sundry visual items while in Italy. Look at them, you won't.

Women's Comics Anthology

                      Front and back cover wraparound by Sara Drake.

Women's Comics Anthology, a zine I co-edited as part of the Ladydrawers project I am helping Anne Elizabeth Moore with, is now available to download for free on 'the Internet.'

Women's Comics Anthology is a gendered content analysis of a random sample of comics anthologies. Some of the statistics derived from our study are deeply troubling and call for soul-searching introspection of behalf of comics editors, publishers and artists. For instance, women comics makers only accounted for 16% of total contributors to the anthologies we reviewed. Indeed, more women appeared as naked characters in the anthologies than as clothed creators contributing to them.  These facty-facts, propped up by anecdotal accounts in extensive interviews collected under the Ladydrawers project, paint the comics industry as systematically inequitable and largely divided among gender lines.

Women's Comics Anthology is also a comics anthology, largely drawn by women. Each statistic collected was illustrated by a different artist. Contributors include Ramsey Beyer, Candace Corbin, Chelsea Dirck, Sara Drake, Emil Emanta, Karla Hewitt-Blackie, Ingrid Olson, Leslie Perrine, Alma Vescovi and most of Moore's Ladydrawers class at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Download Women's Comics Anthology at Pressing Concern Books: here.

Cat Pack For AEM

                                 Cat Pack Portraits by Sara Drake-Wain

On the occasion of Anne Elizabeth Moore's birthday month, Sara Drake and I hatched together a gift cat pack inspired by Sara's currently gestating comics biography of Louis Wain and Anne's two kit-kats. Sara painted these frisky portraits of Thurber and All Girl Metal Band while I wrote them honorific poems - Thurber's details his careening addiction to catnip while All Girl Metal Band's is an eponymous investigation into the world of discrimination and metal show flyers. The poems may be read after "the jump."

Chicago Zine Fest & Comic Symposium of Chicago

My friends in Chicago are throwing two, count 'em, two, big time events celebrating print culture - The Comic Symposium of Chicago and The Chicago Zine Fest. The two events overlap as the symposium is on March 11th and 12th and the zine fest is on March 12th and 13th. The Comic Symposium of Chicago was organized by Sara Drake and Ingrid Olson and is happening at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Speakers include Sarah Becan, Jeffrey Brown, Christa Donner, Surabhi Ghosh, Beth Hetland, Nicole Hollander, Paul Hornschemeier, Joey Jacks, Lucy Knisley, Ian McDuffie, Bernie McGovern, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Anders Nilsen, Laura Park, John Porcellino, and Jeremy Tinder. The symposium is organized into four topic discussions - Professionalization, Identity, Comics & Art, and Independent Distribution and Publishing in Chicago. It happens from 4:30 to 7:00 on both days.

This Is A Comic Book Catalog

This is the catalog for a show I curated last year with Colleen Grennan for the Mahan Gallery.
Inside are examples of each artist's work, essays by Anne Elizabeth Moore, Dave Filipi, J.Caleb Mozzocco, and interviews with Phonzie Davis and Jane Lee.

Here is a review of the show at Every Day is Like Wednesday.
Here is an article about the show by Melissa Starker.
Here is a blurb about it on the Wexner Center Blog.
Here is a blurb about it on Bust.

"PUNK ZINE"

This is the 'zine I made two years ago. It's about Columbus, Ohio and some of the "punk" bands and artists that have called it home. There are eight interviews - Geoff Hing from Defiance, Ohio, Matt Reber from New Bomb Turks, Andy Hinton from Vile Gash, Phonzie Davis of Left Handed Sophie fame, Jason Molinari who lived at The Neil House, Anne Elizabeth Moore of the book "Unmarketable," John Malta of Rattail Flyers, and Jimmy Buttons who lives at The Legion of Doom. There are articles about The Evens, Bike Punks, the comic "Snakepit," Delay, Tin Armor, the CMA show "Renoir's Women," a janitor's strike at OSU, a successful Clinton-Era protest against bombing Iraq, a Griot memoir of Defiance, Ohio reminiscence, and a review of Magic Flowers Droned by Psychedelic Horseshit. There are reprints of a Lantern article about The Neil House, an Other Paper article about The Legion of Doom, an Entertainment Weekly article about "Columbus, the next Seattle," and something originally published in MRR about the Gaunt/New Bomb Turks scene.

If you want to buy a physical, paper copy Microcosm Publishing probably still has it.

Here are some reviews the zine received.

CSBYS Alt Monthly - December

Yes, that is the cover.

This issue has a printed version of my interview with Jay Ryan. Also included: Martin talking about Anne Elizabeth Moore, Constance muckracking subliminal sexual cancer marketing and Bret regaling us with tales of "the one."

Rest of the issue after "the jump."

Anne Elizabeth Moore's essay for This Is A Comic Book.

This is another essay for the catalog pictured above (still available at the Mahan Gallery for $5.00 (US)) in which Anne Elizabeth Moore considers the ongoing academic institutionalization of comic making and some of the consequences of it.


"THE PROBLEM OF PROFESSIONALIZING

Just a few short years ago, young adults with the gumption to really stick it to their parents could handily do so by announcing at the dinner table that they wanted to grow up and become comic-book artists. For decades, jaws of fathers the world over would slacken in disbelief, slowly hardening again into expressions of pure fury before sparks flew. Mothers, wanting always to be supportive, dear, but still, perhaps, wondering if that’s quite the best thing for you, considering, you know, the danger, would press their lips together tightly and wait for this rebellious phase to pass. The more traditional housewives were pummeled with visions of endless days at home with little to fret about but daughters trapped in the drawing mills of one, or the other, major comics publisher, or sons toiling away behind tables in convention halls, hassled endlessly by older men in science fiction outfits, giant animal costumes. It is lucky they did not know the truth: that their children would more likely simply not have jobs. Younger siblings would secretly, silently rejoice. More than one premeditated crime spree has been hatched during such conversations. Families rarely recover from such moments. It is no coincidence that underground cartooning and divorce both achieved their heights of popularity at roughly the same time period.