It’s been 30 years since the Los Angeles Times began hosting their own set of awards, and 14 since the advent of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. This year, both take an important step forward in terms of comics and graphic-novel coverage.
Lisa Coxson is a ninth-grade English teacher at Bronx School of Law and Finance in Bronx, New York. Her favorite members of the Justice League were the Wonder Twins. Her favorite cartoon is a tie between Pinky and the Brain and the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Her favorite graphic novel is currently American Born Chinese.
Rich Young
Do you remember your first comic book or graphic novel? If so, what was it?
It was probably an old Disney Uncle Scrooge. I had an uncle who had a bunch of those I remember reading. I was also always into the Sunday funnies…so Peanuts was big for me. Those were some of the earliest memories.
What do you love about the graphic novel as a format for storytelling?
Our good friend Peter Gutierrez, writer and reviewer and graphic novel columnist, is putting on a great new panel this coming Tuesday, March 9, for the New York Center for Independent Publishing. The panel, "New York, the Super City," will focus on how New York City inspired some of the greatest comics writers and artists in their efforts to create some of the best comics characters of all time. That includes Batman's hometown of Gotham City, Superman's Metropolis, Will Eisner's take on The Spirit, the web-swinging adventures of Spider-Man.
Nonprofit group Reading With Pictures is going to be raising some funds for its charitable endeavours through the release of an exciting new comics anthology. The anthology will feature stories from 50 top comics creators (some of the names involved include Jim Gownley, Eric Wight, Fred Van Lente, and Jill Thompson, who drew the cover) and all the stories will be education-themed. Reading With Pictures uses comics as educational tools and partners with educational facilities to accomplish their mission.
The marrying of comics and mass media continues, and right now, it's a good time to be a comics fan, it seems. It's obvious in movies, of course, that comics are being mined for their storylines and characters. But the television world is getting more and more into the act. For a decade now, that's included Smallville, and a few years ago came the introduction of Heroes.
Every year, the Los Angeles Times holds its Los Angeles Times Festival of Books celebration, a weekend devoted to great books and the people who make them possible. When I lived in San Diego, I used to attend as often as possible, given that the festival has one major drawback (for me, anyway): It always falls on or around my birthday. This year, I've already made separate travel plans for the weekend of April 24th and 25th, but I wish I could be attending (GNR president and publisher Carol Fitzgerald will be there, though).
When I was growing up, certain truths were just absolute. When it came to comics, Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman, which came out in 1938, was the most valuable comic book in the world. Period. And there weren't that many of them.
