Showing posts with label Chris Claremont. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Claremont. Show all posts

Symposium Notation

Once again, the Bard Comics Symposium has come and gone and for once I had almost nothing to do with it! How refreshing it was to sit back and enjoy the show after three years of presenting and two years of presenting AND c0-organizing past incarnations of the project!

Well, as I was your eyes and ears on the scene here's a transcription of my Facebook status-update-micro-blogging of the event exactly as it is on Facebook, with all comments and 'likings' as of April 10 intact combined with my Flickr photostream of the event!

It's long overdue! Enjoy!

Senia Hardwick '10 - "This Isn't the Wasteland: Fear Toxin and Its Implications"

Jon Gorga is at the Fifth Annual Bard Comics Symposium and it has just begun!! Senia Hardwick is talking about Fear Toxin!
Sat at 3:21pm · Comment · Like
Ana Cerro likes this.
Ana Cerro
Ooh, reporting live from Symposium!
Sat at 3:26pm · Comment · Like

Nicki France '11 - Dangerous Calligraphy: Chinese Calligraphy in American Comics

Jon Gorga sits patiently as Nicki France presents us a gorgeous slide of caligraphy now as she begins to talk about the ancient art as it's seen in the comics medium!
Sat at 3:38pm · Comment · Like

Molly Ostertag '13 - "The New Medium"

Jon Gorga just walked around and looked at the comics work of Molly Ostertag and is now listening to her talk about her work!
Sat at 4:11pm · Comment · Like

Josh Kopin '12 - Where is David Aja? Differing Artists as Narrative Device and the Comics Consumption Problem

Jon Gorga is excited to see Josh Kopin take the stage to talk about "The Immortal Iron Fist"!!
Sat at 4:34pm · Comment · Like
Jon Gorga
Awww...! Josh referrenced my SP work in his presentation!! I am honored.
Sat at 4:41pm
K.J. Nolan
Jon, post a pic if you get a chance.
Sat at 5:15pm
Geoff Auerbach
nerd
Sat at 11:34pm
K.J. Nolan
@ Goeff -- and?
Yesterday at 11:19am

Clare Nolan '12 - Two Sides of A Coin: The Nature of the Uncanny in 'Batman: Long Halloween'
Jon Gorga is very proud to see Clare Nolan begin her presentation on the doubles and mirroring in "Batman: The Long Halloween"!!
Sat at 5:26pm · Comment · Like
Ana Cerro likes this.

Jon Gorga Chris Claremont is at the podim and dropping wonderful knowledge on us.
Sat at 6:41pm · Comment · Like
Rebeka Felicity and Sarah Gordon like this.
Devon Jones
Chris Claremont as in "the"? Oh my.
Sat at 7:53pm

Jon Gorga enjoyed attending the Fifth Annual Bard Comic Symposium! And he enjoyed sharing its play-by-play with you via Facebook!
Yesterday at 5:00pm · Comment · Like
George Harris Fish, Rebeka Felicity and Megan Humphreys like this.

A couple spelnig mystakes here and there. Not too egregious. It was real time... at the time.

Also, my apologies for the poor quality of the photos, I was pretty far back in the auditorium and taking them on my iPhone! I didn't snap any of Mr. Claremont (@CClaremont, class of '72) as it just felt wrong to distract him at all as he shared old stories about Bard and living in New York City post-college in the 70s.

It was really pretty inspirational.

~ @JonGorga

Jon Gorga had a dinner of sugar, sugar, and more sugar last night and he has a few things to tell you...

So the second part of my exploration of comics in digital form isn't ready and has been delayed for a few days... In lieu, I give you this potpourri...

1. Clare and Josh are bound by the rules of humbleness and grace not to toot their own horn on the Bard College Comic Symposium coming tomorrow.

But I'm not.

I know for a fact that both Josh and Clare have worked like crazy to assure that the almost day-long event will go off without a hitch. Here's a breakdown of the presenters:

Nicki France is among the most intelligent, sweet, creative, softspoken but highly opinionated people I know. She was doing research a few months ago on examples of Chinese calligraphy in American comics. (I sent her some stuff that hopefully helped out a bit.) That research combined with her voracious interest in all kinds of comics and her interest in Asian studies (most specifically the Chinese language) is going to pay off for all of us in her presentation on the calligraphic arts as filtered through the comics medium.

Senia Hardwick is a close personal friend of mine and I stress that she is a close personal friend for one specific reason: she is a mad scientist and someday may make a bid for world domination and if she wins, I'd like to be on the lower end of the scale of torment. Her status as a supervillain-in-training who has studied psychology and pharmacology makes her particularly perfect to present on the different manifestations and possible real-world application of the Batman villain Scarecrow's fear gas.

Molly Ostertag is a Bard College freshman who will talk about her own comics work and about the medium of comics itself. She is the only presenter I have never met so there is little I can say about her but I do know that the presentations by actual comicsmiths have always been among the highlights of these Symposiums. I've heard her work is wonderful.

The Long and Shortbox Of It!'s
Josh Kopin has been invited to give his presentation from last year's Symposium on the political and symbolic implications of Ed Brubaker's (still continuing) run on "Captain America" at C2E2 in Chicago NEXT WEEK! The mix of his love for "the Immortal Iron Fist" with his recent growing interest in the various forms comics takes and his new concept of differing styles as a narrative tool promise to come together for a presentation as unique and exciting as last year's.

and The Long and Shortbox Of It!'s
Clare Nolan began research many months ago on the Freudian implications of the darkness of the Dark Knight as a diametrical opposite to the brightness of his Rogue's Gallery and both in light of Frued's concept of 'the uncanny,' i.e. the familiar made unfamiliar, most often through mirroring and doubles. As a Batman fan, we know Clare's going to give us something respectful, and as a brilliant* writer, we know we're getting something rigorous and fascinating.

Prof. Ben Stevens has probably held for quite some time the position of The Smartest Guy I Know. Recently published in the online academic journal ImageText, with a paper on the topic of the self-aware nature of Craig Thompson's "Blankets" which was largely built from work he presented on at last year's Symposium. His new presentation on 'semiotics and ethics' in Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" will no doubt be as crazy and brilliant as his past work.

Chris Claremont is... well a very famous writer who made the X-Men what they are just after he graduated from Bard College in 1972. And then continued to write them for seventeen years. He's also a friendly guy and a genuinely interesting writer. Securing him to talk for this event was quite a coup and it's going to be very, very cool!

If you can, you should be at the Bito Auditorium, in the Reem-Kayden Center for Science and Computation, on the Bard College campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY on Saturday at 3PM.

By the way, it's free!

But if you really can't be at the Bard College campus on Saturday at 3PM...

2. ...and you live in the vaguely reachable area around New York City, you better damn well be at the 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue for the annual MoCCA Festival. It's my favorite comics-event of the year. The number of cool things to see and cool people to meet never ceases to amaze, while remaining at an amount that you're actually capable of experiencing in the time the event lasts! The mega-huge giganta-cons like NY COMIC-CON haven't seemed to figure that out or don't seem to care.

Look up the details here on the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's page devoted to the festival.

One of my favorite people to see at MoCCA every year is...

3. Monica Gallagher. Monica created a comic a few years ago called "boobage" that is so many kinds of excellent I can't begin to tell you. It's a wonderful short comic about growing-up that shows how comics can be a fantastic presentation of a singular concept and a singular vision clearly dramatized on the page. I had the opportunity to meet her for the second time recently at a small signing of women comicsmiths at Jim Hanley's Universe and as I awkwardly stammered about how awesome her work is (and struggled to hear what she was saying because my damned right ear has been nearly deaf for four days from my seasonal allergies) we talked about "Boobage", how excellent MoCCA is, the awesome/discouraging possible future world of digital comics, and her latest offering: "When I Was a Mall Model". Seeing Monica made me feel a bit better about missing MoCCA this year! So thanks for that!

Hey Bard students who liked "Boobage"! I'm coming to Bard and I'm only bringing one comic: "When I Was a Mall Model".
(Which is essentially a kina-sorta-defacto sequel to "Boobage".) Ask me to see it!

Monica's website is EatYourLipstick.com


________________________________
*I don't believe Clare Nolan is brilliant because she's my girlfriend. Clare Nolan is my girlfriend because I believe she's brilliant. I think if you hear her speak, you will agree with me.

The Comic Symposium Is Upon Us....

On April 10th, Bard College will host its Fifth Annual Comic Symposium. Clare and I have been planning it for months, and it's nearly here. Featuring presentations from both Clare and myself as well as other members of the Bard community and, most excitingly, Bard grad and comic legend Chris Claremont. Above is the poster that I designed, and I think it's pretty sweet.

Hope to see y'all there.

Gorga's Looking Forward to Wednesday 10/28/2oo9

It's another light week for me as well. Clare is hardcore. But more money for food for me! yay!

The usual Spider-Man related item:
"the New Avengers" #58

And I do want to see how Tony Daniel handles writing and drawing "Batman":
"Batman" #692

And I gotta at least peek at:
"Superman: Secret Origin" #2 of 6


UPDATE: 10/28/2oo9
I wasn't sure I was going to make it, so I didn't mention it... but I did, so now I will!

(From left to right: the enthusiastic writer Dan Slott, the contemplative writer Chris Claremont, and the gentlemanly artist Neal Adams signing and sketching at Forbidden Planet in NYC.)

Forbidden Planet was having a small signing event as part of Marvel's strange little MarvelFest NYC 2009 party-type thing. This magical thing we call the Internet told me that current on and off writer of "the Amazing Spider-Man" Dan Slott, classic writer of "the Uncanny X-Men" and fellow graduate of my alma mater Chris Claremont, and epically old-school realistic artist Neal Adams were going to be there.

So I made my way south to Union Square to pick up my comics and talk with some awesome comics writers and one excellent artist today. I really had NO time to devote to what turned out to be, essentially, a really wonderful tiny (but FREE!) comics-CON. If something like this goes down again, I will try to be there. Despite the fact that I was rushed, despite the fact that quarters were cramped and despite the fact that all three of these gentlemen had been there a full HOUR before I showed up, they were each wonderful and generous with their time.

Seeing Slott and Claremont was very nice and relaxed because I'd met each of them previously, albeit very quickly, but I was absurdly jittery around Adams suddenly at the moment I got to talk to him. He is an immensely talented individual. I was actually very surprised that all three of them had the time to talk to me! I was just one fan of hundreds they had to see for the day.

(Oh my god. I completely forgot in all the rush and my usual gushing excitement for all things Spider-Man that Slott also co-writes "the Mighty Avengers"! The first two pages of the latest issue of that series are among my favorite that have seen print this year. Should have complemented him on that.)

Then I was even more happily surprised that they had no problem with me taking a quick photo. "Quick" being the operative word about that photo above. See Mr. Slott! Fastest writin' hand in the West!

So: funny story. All this wonderful camaraderie is happening and I finish talking with the bouncing ball of comics glee that is Dan Slott and take my phtoto and then I remembered that I had my job at the bakery to get to! And I hadn't picked up my comics! I rushed and grabbed a copy of "the New Avengers" #58 and bolted to the thankfully short cashier line. While in line I looked at my phone to discover that it was 6:01 PM. I was already a minute late! Long story short, I made it to work in fair time because it's inside Grand Central Station, 10 minutes from Union Square. No flack on my back. They are surprisingly chill there. Now if only they sold comics...

UPDATE: 10/29/2oo9
So after a second quick comic shop trip today (this time to a shop closer to my work, during my break) I have decided to remain steadfastly sitting on my one purchase for the week. So help me god.

Sure couldn't hurt that backlog of books that need reviewing...