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Message to our Readers
Posted by Gary Groth on February 19th, 2010 at 3:27 PM
We’d like to thank tcj.com readers for their patience during the bumpy first couple of months of our expansion. It’s been a steep learning curve and we’re still making our way down the list of bugs that need ironing out. We're aware, of course, of the viral critiques that have popped up recently, which run the usual gamut from serious, well-intentioned, and productive to snide, resentful, and supercilious, but rather than take the time to respond to each and every one, we need to focus on fixing the technical shortcomings and glitches, which is precisely what we're doing. There are plenty of things about the site that still need to be de-uglified and kicked into working order, but one new weapon we’re going to have in this continuing struggle is production assistant Tony Remple who will help with day-to-day postings, so that we will have more time to concentrate on developing new content and realizing our long-term editorial plans.
Cosmetic shortcomings and functional glitches aside, we set our sights very high and some of the major initiatives we had planned are going to need further tinkering before we’re satisfied that they’re ready to be unveiled. For example, we don’t want to fully launch a regular news posting until we know we can deliver the kind of regular, in-depth journalism that has long been missing from the Internet’s coverage of the comics field.
Our primary aim, however, was to channel the range of thoughtful, confrontational, probing voices that make up The Comics Journal into a site that is true to the magazine’s sensibilities and unlike any other place on the Web. We wanted to take both the magazine and Internet comics coverage places they’ve never been before, and that is a goal that we are proud to see taking clearer and clearer shape every day.
We want to reassure readers that we are aware that there are technical, navigational, and other problems with the website, and that we are working nearly 24 hours a day to fix them. Rest assured that we’re just getting started. One day, not only will this all look prettier and be better navigable, but we have some ambitious features in the works that are going to shock and amaze you.
The Watchful Eye of David Levine: Interview by Gary Groth (Part Six of Six)
Posted by Gary Groth on January 20th, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Levine: I really feel that we'd be much better off without critics. They are an insinuation into the field because of the ignorance of the middle class who need to be told what's good. They're applying most of their time to making a living - making a good living - struggle to maintain a living, whatever it is, and they don't have time to go to the museums until they're led there by a sure thing. And here it is! "This painting by Picasso says... and you look to the light over the head... and the horse rearing means this." They need written explanations, and critical reassurance: "Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!" If they took any last look at Picasso's last etchings, they're just mere cartoons, not better drawn than anybody else, they're just funny old men looking at young bodies. That's it.
The Watchful Eye of David Levine: Interview by Gary Groth (Part Five of Six)
Posted by Gary Groth on January 19th, 2010 at 12:01 AM
GROTH: Have you ever been confronted by anyone that you’ve unflatteringly caricatured? Did Henry ever walk up to you?
LEVINE: A subject’s wife asked me, saying, “He’s got everything else and I want to give him something unique for a gift.” I said, “Don’t ask me to do this. First of all it’s expensive, I don’t like it, I know the man, he’s a friend, I don’t want to do it.” Well, she convinced me that she had to have it, it was all she could think of. So I did it and I got a three-page letter from her telling me how bad my drawing was, it wasn’t up to the same quality as any of my other caricatures, it missed him entirely, on and on and on.
The Watchful Eye of David Levine: Interview by Gary Groth (Part Four of Six)
Posted by Gary Groth on January 18th, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Levin: But with Kissinger, first of all the New York Review did not want to print that. They're fearful of things sexual. On one occasion I did a drawing of Philip Roth. In the scrap material he was wearing a turtleneck sweater. Back came word from Barbara E., why did I make him a penis?
The Watchful Eye of David Levine: Interview by Gary Groth (Part Three of Six)
Posted by Gary Groth on January 15th, 2010 at 12:01 AM
Levine's caricature of Lillian Hellman.
LEVINE: I've also always preserved the sense that this is my species and I'm not interested in cutting them up in a way that is abusive. There is a point at which I think setting the context in which people function can be very upsetting. If you maim people for the violence on television, with all the new technology, that gets to be a point where you are undercutting the humanity of even the worst people you are talking about, and cartoonists have to share that. There is a tendency and a love of just going as far as you can, and that's part of a feeling in caricaturists, the really natural ones, but I caution them on two levels: One, your art director or editor is going to say, "Hey, that doesn't look like them," so you might as well not go that far. And secondly, there is this thing of, you owe a responsible position to your species. The Watchful Eye of David Levine: Interview by Gary Groth (Part One of Six)
Posted by Gary Groth on January 13th, 2010 at 12:01 AM
TCJ 300: Conversations (Introduction)
Posted by Gary Groth on December 31st, 2009 at 3:24 AM
300 issues, 33 years.*
If the concept of 300 issues of this magazine sets you reeling in a fog of disbelief, horror, and awe, imagine what it does to me. When I co-founded The Comics Journal in 1976, I
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TCJ International Blogs
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- Belgium: Going Underground in the Thirties
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- Italy: A little mirror of comics in Italy / part 1
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- Belgium: The Girl and the Gorilla
- Belgium: When I Was 18, Uncle Sam Wanted Me to Fight Adolf
- Sweden: Moebius exhibition in Paris