On March 27th, the Institute for Comics Studies Forum will be held from 9-4 at the H. Sam Priest House at Webster University (8270 Big Bend, Webster, MO 63119). The forum is open to the public free of charge. Academics and professionals will be discussing local teaching and creating of comics. Teachers, faculty, college and high school students, and comics fans and readers are encouraged to attend.
Panels include: A Map of Comics St. Louis, Comics Studies in St. Louis, Comics Creation in St. Louis, Comics in the Classroom, The Comics Market in St. Louis, and Keynote Speech: “Cinematic Comics: Irrelevant Irreverence?”
Presenters include: Peter Coogan (Institute for Comics Studies), Steve Higgins (Lewis and Clark Community College), Larry D. Quiggins (Lindenwood University), Geoff Schmidt (Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville), and David Schuman (Washington University in St. Louis), David B. Olsen (Saint Louis University), Ted May (Injury), Mardou (artist/writer of Manhole), Dan Zettwoch (Ironclad), Christoher Sagovac (Webster University), Sheri McCord (St. Louis University), Jake Wagman (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), Scott Samson (The ComicDorksCast), and Pier Marton (Washington University).
Daniel Boone Regional Library currently has a comics and graphic novels display up at the library, but they are also giving out blank comic templates for people to draw on and turn back in for the library to display. At this month’s midmococo meeting we completed a jam using one of the blank templates:
Last weekend was the True/False documentary film fest in Columbia and a couple of comic related things by director Nathan Truesdell caught my eye. One was this video featuring MU professor of veterinary medicine Tim Evans dressed as his alter ego The Antidote. The short was an entry to the Gimme Truth competition where judges had to guess whether the video was true or false. (Two out of three judges thought it was false.) On March 1st, Mizzou Wire honored Evans by giving him the Nerd of the Year award.
Truesdell’s second contribution to the fest was a bumper video shown before every movie at the festival. It happens to feature underground comic artist Frank Stack as the guy with the mop.
According to a news story at the Warrensburg Missouri Digital Burg site, a University of Central Missouri student has won a contest started by famous writer Stan Lee. The contest was to create a new character for Stan Lee’s Time Jumper series, and freshman illustration major Matt Reynolds answered the call with a character called Backdraft. Reynolds and a friend traveled to Los Angeles for a lunch with Stan Lee as part of winning the contest.
How did comic books go from being trash in the 1950s to treasure in the ’70s? Peter Coogan, director of the Institute for Comics Studies, delves into the depths of the ’60s to discover how fan clubs and comic book conventions provided a marketplace in which old comics became valuable. Please join us on the closing day of the Treasure! exhibition for this informative program.
Local comic artist Jeremy Burt has a feature story in the Columbia Tribune today. The story focuses on his strip Jeremy And Tim, which made it to the top 5% of Amazon.com’s Comic Strip Superstar contest as we reported last month. The Tribune also showcased some of his new art on their blog last Thursday too.
Here are some jams from the November 1st Midmococo meeting. The first jam is a thank you card for Lisa Bartlett for hosting last month’s 24 hour comics day event at her Artlandish Gallery. (The design was based on my poster for the 24 hour comic day event.)
I’m a little late to announce this, but William “Bill” Hume passed away on June 27th, 2009. Hume was a multi-talented artist, born and raised in Columbia, Mo., and living here most of his life. He was 93 years old at the time of his death.
The State Historical Society of Missouri has just opened a new exhibit: The Golden Age of the Comic Strip. The show runs November 9th 2009 to May 2010, and a reception for the exhibit will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, November 13th.. Here’s the show description from the website:
The 1930s–1950s were vibrant years for the production of newspaper comics, and this exhibition will showcase the Society’s rarely seen examples, many of which were collected by the well–known former editor of the Mexico Ledger, L. Mitchell White, and his son, Robert M. Works by some of the greatest artists of the genre will be displayed, with original pen and ink drawings for classic strips such as Mutt and Jeff, Little Orphan Annie, and Blondie, and cartoons from the workshop of Walt Disney.
Please note that the State Historical Society hours have been recently cut back due to state budget cuts. They are now open Monday to Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Cartoonist Dan Zettwoch has curated an art show featuring many St. Louis comic artists. The show is called Famous Fictional and runs at the Mad Art Gallery November 6th to December 1st. It features “characters ripped from the headlines of ancient texts, traditional folk tales, and modern films.” Participating artists include: Anchovy, Jenny Cimino, Katie Frisbee-O’malley, John Hendrix, Kevin Huizenga, Mardou, Scott Matthews, Thomas Plunk, Peter Pranschke, Jason Robards, Chris Roettger, Jessica Russo, Max Vento, Ron Weaver, Jeff Worm, Brian Yap, & Dan Zettwoch. Check out how Dan Zettwoch made the poster for the show.
The press is all over a story about an auction of 3,000 well preserved comics found in an Arnold Missouri home by an heir. Mound City Auctions held the auction Sunday and Monday in the Ameristar Casino of St. Charles, and entertained bids from collectors worldwide. As of Sunday, the highest item sold was X-Men #1 for $101,000. According to Mound City Auctions, the preliminary sales figures for both days were around $1,000,000. If you’re interested to see what some of the items went for, you can view some through a St. Louis Examiner’s slideshow. There’s some more information in this Fox 2 news segment about the auction:
Local Columbia Access Television has uploaded a presentation by David Mowder, an illustrator for Hallmark. This is the second of several presentations that CAT recorded at Toonfest 2009 in Marceline MO. You can watch the presentation online, or check the broadcast air times to see when you can catch it via Mediacom (channel 85), Charter (channel 21) or the CAT online stream.
Local cartoonist Jeremy Burt has gotten some mention from the local press lately. The Missourian had a front page article on Burt, and a Tribune blog mentioned that they have a story coming up about him as well.
It seems Burt’s comic Jeremy And Tim was entered in Amazon.com’s Comic Strip Superstar competition. Burt made it to the top 250 cartoonists out of 5,000, but was cut today from semi-finals that narrowed it down to 50 cartoonists. You can read his full submission up online.
October 16th – 18th is a new convention in Springfield MO called GAME: Gaming Arts Media Expo. It’s three days of focus on the “geeky arts.” Here’s what to expect:
Role-playing, “Warmachine Weekend”, Anime theater, panel discussions with writers, podcasters, artist and authors, game development contest, a dealer’s area, and much more.
The second annual Citizen Jane Film Festival is coming to Columbia October 16th – 18th. The festival has a couple of programs featuring work by cartoonists.
Saturday at 11:15AM and at 5:00pm is the animated film $9.99. Animator and concept illustrator Shira Derman will be in person. Derman has contributed comics to The Novel of Nonel and Vovel which is a recently released graphic novel co-written by Israeli artist Oreet Ashery and Palestian artist Larissa Sansour.
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Here’s some upcoming Missouri cons:
According to 
The Missouri History Museum in St. Louis is hosting a lecture January 3rd at 1 p.m. called 
Local comic artist Jeremy Burt has a 
I’m a little late to announce this, but 
The State Historical Society of Missouri has just opened a new exhibit: 
Cartoonist 
This week’s Vox Magazine showcases a 
Local cartoonist Jeremy Burt has gotten some mention from the local press lately. The Missourian had a 
October 16th – 18th is a new convention in Springfield MO called