The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco has-reopened for in-person visits, but the Museum also has videos and virtual exhibits available for those curious about Disney and his legacies. The galleries feature an extensive, heavily-illustrated look at Disney’s life, while current exhibitions are The Walt Disney Studios and World War II , a display of works by U.S. military veterans, and Conserving the Magic of our Planet: A Virtual Community Art Exhibition. There are also education resources on the Museum site, including instructions for making two motion-illusion toys, a thaumatrope and a flipbook. Visit the Museum blog too, which is updated twice monthly with deep dives into animation history.

 

Teen Titans Go!: Marv Wolfman and George Perez Make Series Debut in New Clip (Exclusive)My favorite comic in 1981 was The New Teen Titans, written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Pérez. Many of the characters that Wolfman and Pérez created for that comic—Starfire, Raven, Deathstroke—show up in Warner Brothers’ Teen Titans animated series, begun in 2003 and versions of which are still popular today. (Coming up is Teen Titans GO! See Space Jam, where the DC Superheroes “watch and offer hilarious commentary on the classic 1996 live-action / animated sports comedy film”: Cartoon Network, Sunday, June 20, 6pm.) Now, as the ComicBook site reports, animated versions of Wolfman and Pérez voiced by the creators have appeared in Teen Titans GO!, in the logically-named new episode “Marv Wolfman and George Pérez.” Good to see the original trailblazers acknowledged. (And below is the original art for a Pérez two-page spread from the New Teen Titans comic, just because.)

 

Woodrow Phoenix has been a British cartoonist, writer, designer and letterer for over four decades, and his website shows off his talent in all these fields. Check out the “Donny Digits and More Kids Stuff” page, which features Phoenix’s art for children (and gives you a link to download an excerpt from Phoenix and Robin Price’s Count Milkula), as well as his work in design and illustration and typefaces and fonts. His most recent graphic novel is Crash Course (2020), a non-fiction study of “the powerful and often toxic relationship between people and cars.” Perhaps his most experimental project is She Lives (2014), a giant wordless comic assembled by hand and exhibited around museums and art galleries in the UK. (Phoenix points out, “There is only one copy.”) Below are links to videos about She Lives: a time-lapse preview of the entire book, and four clips of Phoenix drawing panels with a brush: 1, 2, 3, 4.

 

On My Modern Met there’s a portfolio of the art of Josh Sperling, who (according to Met writer Margherita Cole) “merges sculpture with painting in his newest solo exhibition. Entitled Spectrum, the series of abstract works features the artist’s signature squiggle motif in multi-piece installations that appear to move across the walls.” Cole goes on to describe Sperling’s creative process, and his attempts to play with our perceptions of the distinction between two and three dimensions. For more on Sperling’s work (which has lots of affinities with cartooning), check out Sperling’s website and Instagram, and go to the site for the Perrotin Art Gallery in Hong Kong, where the Spectrum exhibit is currently on display.

 

Here’s an item for teens and adults. Tor Books, which specializes in publishing science fiction, is sponsoring their second virtual TorCon from Thursday, June 10 through Sunday, June 13. A thumbnail version of the schedule is left, and for details about registration and panels, check out the TorCon page. Also browse the main Tor.com site, where new articles—media news, new short stories, book reviews, etc.—are posted every day. May I recommend a post by Mari Ness titled “Cruella de Vil is the Most Magnificent Villain in Children’s Literature”?

 

Indianapolis-area newspaper and website The Current recently ran a feature expressing the thoughts and feelings of kids trying to learn online during the Covid pandemic. Current cartoonist Tim Campbell distributed a series of questions—including “What do you wish people knew about school during Covid-19?” and “What is the hardest thing for you to deal with right now?” to students at Fishers Junior High, collected their hundreds of replies, and illustrated in comics many of their answers. Below is one of Campbell’s posters collating the students’ opinions; three more are available here.

This weekly blog post is written and compiled by Craig Fischer. To send along recommendations, ideas, and comments, contact Craig at [email protected] [.]

Playhouse Comics Club, Issue #57 (May 28, 2021)Playhouse Comics Club, Issue #59 (June 11, 2021)
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