Masters of American Comics

July 10th, 2006

Thanks to Anna the sculptor in Madison who told me about the Masters of American Comics exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum. I went to it yesterday morning. The hotel shuttle bus dropped me off in front of this cool orange sunburst sculpture.

Then I walked across a bridge to the art museum, which looks like some sort of infernal catapult about to launch a projectile across Lake Michigan.

The comics exhibit was amazing. The Winsor McKay (Little Nemo in Slumberland) and George Herriman (Krazy Kat) stuff in particular blew me away. It was stunning to see it in black and white, without the printed newspaper colors. Vigorous, free, confident, accurate. I got all excited by McKay’s masterful perspective and architectural renderings. (Some people I’ve talked to have objected to the “Masters” in the title, I guess on sexist grounds, and it’s true there’s not a woman in the whole exhibit, but McKay is a fucking master so I’ll let it go.) His pages were so vivid I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Little Nemo tumble right out onto the gallery floor.

Here I am waiting for the shuttle bus to pick me up and take me back to the hotel so Amy from Broad Vocabulary can drive me to Chicago.

Some local Vermont things…

July 9th, 2006

I’m going to be on VPR on Monday afternoon talking to Neal Charnoff about Fun Home. It’s tentatively scheduled for 4:50, on the local news programming they slot into All Things Considered. I’ll probably miss it. I’m flying back to VT from Chicago on Monday, and my flight theoretically gets in at 4:39. But it’ll be available for download, and I’ll post that here. Just in case you’re not sick to death of hearing about me and my book and my sordid family history yet.

And I’m going to read at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier on Tuesday the 11th at 7pm.

And also at the Peace and Justice Store in Burlington on Friday the 14th. Also at 7pm, I think.

Broad Vocabulary, Milwaukee WI

July 9th, 2006

Today I read at Broad Vocabulary, a new feminist bookstore that’s owned and run by a stalwart band of young volunteers. I love their mudflap logo. Here’s Molly out front.

And here’s me with Molly and Amy, inside.

We had a cozy, convivial sort of reading. Here’s the crowd looking at my powerpoint slides. It was a great bunch of young people, old time DTWOF readers, boys, girls, comics geeks, the whole gamut.