NYC – The Boy Who Loved Batman Lecture

Michael Uslan appears at MoCCA on Monday, November 21, 2011 from 7 – 9pm.

Press Release:

Come celebrate our new exhibitions with Michael Uslan, and hear how “The Boy Who Loved Batman” conquered Hollywood to bring the Dark Knight to the silver screen.

Admission: $5/ free for MoCCA Members
 
Michael Uslan has helped to bring some of the most memorable films to the big screen. He is the executive producer of films such as Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Constantine, The Spirit, Batman Begins, and the second highest grossing film of all time, The Dark Knight.

His most recent project is the newly released memoir The Boy Who Loved Batman, the true story of how a middle class boy from New Jersey grew up to be an executive producer of one of the most successful film franchises of all time.

Michael Uslan’s comic writing credits include the critically-acclaimed revival of The Shadow for DC Comics, Archie Comics, Terry and the Pirates, Stan Lee’s Just Imagine Batman, Batman: Detective #27 graphic novel, the comics history America At War – A History of War Comics, Mysteries in Space – A History of Science Fiction Comics, The Pow! Zap! Wham! Comic Book Trivia Quiz Book, and many others. He is a recipient of an Emmy Award as Executive Producer of the popular children’s series Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?, an Annie Award for the animated movie Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker, and a Peoples Choice Award for the movie Batman.

In 2008 the film The Dark Knight became one of the highest grossing films of all time, and cemented the Batman film series as one of the most successful film franchises ever. This achievement was no surprise to Michael Uslan, the man who had dreamed of making a dark, serious Batman film since he was a child, and had (with his partner Benjamin Melniker) acquired the rights to the films in 1979. For the majority of his life, he believed in the power and universality of the Batman story, and was determined to bring a sophisticated take to theaters, even when the industry believed it was a property best left for children. In his personal memoir, The Boy Who Loved Batman, Uslan shares his story— starting with his humble beginnings as a comics-obsessed New Jersey boy (who entered college with 30,000 comics in his collection), to his early renown as the creator of the first college course on comics. Uslan recounts how his summer employment at DC Comics lead to him writing for The Shadow and, in a fulfillment of his dream, Batman.  He reveals the behind-the-scenes drama behind securing the right to produce Batman films, and reinvigorated the Dark Knight as the powerful, serious hero that audiences love. Along the way readers will meet the greats of the comic book world such as Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Stan Lee; learn the back-story on the surprising but inspired casting of Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker; and gain insight into the turbulent politics and economy of Hollywood.
 
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – MoCCA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts education organization dedicated to the preservation, study and display of all forms of comic and cartoon art.  The museum promotes greater understanding and appreciation of the artistic, cultural and historical significance of comic and cartoon art through a variety of events, exhibitions, and educational programs.   The museum is located at 594 Broadway (between Houston and Prince Streets) in New York City.  MoCCA is open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays from 12:00-5:00 pm.  Suggested donation to the museum is $6 but free for MoCCA Members as well as for children 10 and under (when accompanied by a paying adult).  For more information about the museum and MoCCA events, exhibitions and programs, contact MoCCA President and Chairman Ellen S. Abramowitz at eabramowitz@moccany.org.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, (btwn. Houston and Prince), New York, NY 10012

MoCCA’s Schedule for NYCC 2011

Join the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art – MoCCA at New York Comic Con for special programming:

CAROUSEL, 3:15pm Friday October 14, on the Variant Stage

Cartoon slide shows created and performed by some of New York’s best alternative cartoonists. Emily Flake (“Lulu Eightball”), Danny Hellman (“Typhon”), Sam Henderson (“The Magic Whistle”) Michael Kupperman (“Tales Designed to Thrizzle”) and more! Hosted by R. Sikoryak

SPOTLIGHT: DASH SHAW, 10:45am Sunday October 16, Room 1B01

Dash Shaw is the cartoonist behind the telepathy comedy “BodyWorld” and the surreal family comedy “Bottomless Belly Button”.  He is also the animator/director of IFC’s “The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.” He is currently working on another comic book and an animated feature, “Shell”, which recently attended the Sundance Screenwriter & Director Labs.

MICHAEL USLAN signing at the MoCCA Booth

Michael Uslan is the author of “The Boy Who Loved Batman”, the true story of how a middle class boy from New Jersey grew up to be an executive producer of one of the most successful film franchises of all time. Uslan was the executive producer of films such as Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Constantine, The Spirit, Batman Begins, and the second highest grossing film of all time, The Dark Knight. He has also written a number ofcomic books, including the critically-acclaimed revival of The Shadow for DC Comics.

Tables Open for MoCCA ArtFest 2012

Press Release:

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – MoCCA – is pleased to announce  that general registration for tables are now available for exhibitors  for MoCCA Fest 2012!

Please note that the next Festival will take place over Saturday April 28 and Sunday April 29, 2012,  with exhibitor registration taking place on the afternoon of Friday  April 27.  This is slightly different than our tentative dates of April  14-15, so adjust your calendars accordingly!

Last year we celebrated the Tenth Anniversary of MoCCA, and in 2012  we will celebrate the 10th year of the Festival. This will prove to be a  special MoCCA Fest for everyone following our most successful year,  where as many of you know, we sold completely to capacity. The annual  two-day Festival continues to attract thousands of comic art lovers and  creators from around the globe to celebrate one of the world?s most  popular art forms in the heart of New York City.

Since 2002 MoCCA Fest has offered a unique venue to  experience comics,  minicomics, web-comics, graphic novels, animation,  posters, prints, original artwork, and more. Each year, the Festival  invites dozens of established and emerging creators, scholars, and  other experts to participate in two days of lectures and discussion  panels on a variety of comics and cartoon topics. Past exhibitors have  included Abrams ComicArts, ACT-I-VATE, Ad House, Candle Light Press,  Center for Cartoon Studies, Comics Bakery, Drawn & Quarterly, Evil  Twin Comics, Fantagraphics, First Second Books, Joe Kubert School, NBM  Press, New York University, the Norwegian Consulate, Paperkutz, Parsons  School of Design, Pantheon, School for Visual Arts, TopatoCo, Top Shelf,  Tug Boat Press, and many, many more.

Now through October 15th, 2011, exhibitor table prices are as follows:

Full Table, MoCCA Member

$375

Full Table, General

$415

Half Table, MoCCA Member

$215

Half Table, General

$255

Student, Full Table

$310

Student, Half Table

$190

(students must submit valid student ID with application)

Reserve your space now! We will accept registrations on a  first-come, first-serve basis, after which we will hold a waiting  list. All prices will rise after October 15th; a Full Table without  Membership will be $430 until December 31st, expect all prices will rise  in kind.

MoCCA Fest 2012 will again take place at the historic 69th  Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY. Registrations will  be accepted on a first come, first served basis beginning Monday August  7th by fax (212-254-3590), mail and in person only. Registration forms are available on the MoCCA website.

Should you have any additional questions, please direct them to Emma Rivera at  exhibitors@moccany.org, or call the office at 212-254-3511.

NYC – Eisner Retrospective Panel

Denny O’Neil, David Hajdu, and N.C. Christopher Couch speak at a discussion moderated by Danny Fingeroth on Thursday, August 4th from 7-9 pm.

Admission: $7/Free for MoCCA members

Why and how did the guy who invented and conquered entertainment comics and then spent 25 successful years creating educational comics reinvent himself, the medium of sequential art, and the comics industry itself through his innovation in the literary and autobiographical graphic novel and his endless advocacy for comics as an art form?

About the panelists:

DENNY O’NEIL, one of comics’ most acclaimed writers, worked briefly in journalism, then moved to New York and comics. Denny brought social consciousness to the medium with the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow series. His work on Batman— as writer and editor—returned that character to its dark, gothic roots. Denny knew Will Eisner and considered him both a friend and a major influence.

DAVID HAJDU is a critic for The New Republic and a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He interviewed Will Eisner extensively and wrote about him at length for The New York Review of Books and other publications. He is the author of four books: Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America, and Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture. His articles and essays have been selected for a number of anthologies, including Best Music Writing, Best American Magazine Writing, The New York Times Arts & Culture Reader, and Best American Comics Writing.

N. C. CHRISTOPHER COUCH holds a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Latin American art and on graphic novels and comic art, including The Will Eisner Companion: The Pioneering Spirit of the Father of the Graphic Novel (with Stephen Weiner), Will Eisner: A Retrospective (with Peter Myer), Faces of Eternity: Masks of the Pre-Columbian Americas, and The Festival Cycle of the Aztec Codex Borbonicus. He teaches comics as art and literature at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the School of Visual Arts, New York, and Trinity College, Hartford. He has curated exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History, the Americas Society, the Oklahoma Air and Space Museum and the Smith College Museum of Art. His most recent book, Jerry Robinson, Ambassador of Comics (Abrams 2010) has been nominated for a Harvey Award.

DANNY FINGEROTH is MoCCA’s Sr VP of Education and co-curator, with Denis Kitchen, of the Will Eisner’s New York andIn The Spirit of Will Eisner exhibitions. With Arie Kaplan, he co-curated the 2010 Is This the Al Jaffee Art Exhibit? at the museum. For Write Now! magazine, Fingeroth interviewed Will Eisner in depth in 2003. The interview is available in The Best of Write Now! Danny Fingeroth was a longtime editor and writer at Marvel Comics, and is the author of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell us About Ourselves and Society; Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comic, and the Creation of the Superhero; and The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels. He has spoken on comics at The Smithsonian Institution, Columbia University (where he lectured about Eisner), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With Roy Thomas, Fingeroth is co-editor of The Stan Lee Universe, a compendium of rarities from Lee’s career, including unseen Will Eisner material, which will be released in fall 2011 by TwoMorrows Publishing. You can contact him at: dfingeroth@moccany.org.

About the Will Eisner’s New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel exhibition:
From the Golden Age of Comics through the creation of the modern graphic novel (a form he was instrumental in popularizing), you will find New York City at the heart of Will Eisner’s work. Whether thinly disguised as “Central City” in the pages of his legendary creation, The Spirit, or more directly presented in his autobiographical graphic novels, New York was portrayed by Eisner as only a native of the city could know it.

Like the legendary metropolis itself, there are infinite perspectives from which to look at and appreciate Eisner’s work. Will Eisner’s New York: From the Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel provides surprising insights and moving revelations about the artist, his work, and his city.
 
MoCCA Education
For More information on MoCCA Education please email info@moccany.org

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, (btwn. Houston and Prince), New York, NY 10012

NYC – Vietnamerica Launch Party

Join rising talent GB Tran and the MoCCA community for a special event on Thursday January 27, 2011 at 7pm—the launch of GB’s incredible graphic memoir, VIETNAMERICA: A Family’s Journey, a new, full-color hardcover from Villard Books.

As part of MoCCA’s acclaimed MoCCA Thursdays series, GB will discuss the core of VIETNAMERICA the story behind his family’s survival and escape during the Vietnam War, their reinvention as refugees in the United States, and his own discovery about how the past we don’t know can shape and define us. A book signing will follow a Q&A session. Free wine will be served.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10012
(btwn. Houston and Prince)

NYC – Al Jaffee Retrospective

Al Jaffee, Peter Kuper, John Bunk and Danny Fingeroth appear at MoCCA on Dec. 9th.

To celebrate the awe-inspiring event that is the “IS THIS THE AL JAFFEE ART EXHIBIT?” exhibit, we’ve assembled an “unusual gang of idiots” including AL JAFFEE himself, plus two of Al’s fellow MAD magazine creators whose work has been greatly influenced by Jaffee—PETER KUPER and TOM BUNK—as well as, playing moderator, the co-curator of the Jaffee exhibit and MoCCA SVP of Education, DANNY FINGEROTH! Would you be mad to miss this amazing panel? At $5 cheap (and FREE for MoCCA members), you sure would be—not to mention crazy, insane, and fershlugginer!

Thursday, December 9, 7 PM
IS THIS AN AL JAFFEE MOCCA THURSDAY PANEL?
Admission: $5|Free for MoCCA Members 

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10012
(btwn. Houston and Prince)

NYC – The Craft of Comics Writing

PAUL LEVITZ leads a discussion of how to construct plots to suit story structures long and short, building ideas from character, and tools for analyzing the form to develop your goals. Everything you ever wanted to know about plotting comics but were afraid to ask!

Q & A to follow.

MASTER CLASS: THE CRAFT OF COMICS WRITING: THE LONG AND SHORT OF PLOTTING with PAUL LEVITZ
Monday, December 6, 6:30-8:30 pm
Admission $40 | $35 for MoCCA Members

PAUL LEVITZ was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1956, and entered the comics industry in 1971 as editor/publisher of The Comic Reader, the first mass-circulation fanzine devoted to comics news. He continued to publish TCR for three years, winning two consecutive annual Comic Art Fan Awards for Best Fanzine. His other fan activities included editing the program books for several of Phil Seuling’s legendary New York Comic Art Conventions. He received Comic-con International’s Inkpot Award in 2002 and the prestigious Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award in 2008. Levitz also serves on the board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Levitz is primarily known for his work for DC Comics, where he has written most of their classic characters including the Justice Society and Superman in both comics and the newspaper strip, and an acclaimed run on The Legion of Super-Heroes, a series he’s recently returned to write. Readers of The Buyers’ Guide voted his Legion: The Great Darkness Saga one of the 20 best comic stories of the last century, and visitors to the site comicbookresources.com selected the same story as #11 of the Top 100 Comic Book Stories of All Time.

Cumulatively, Levitz has written over 300 stories with sales of over 25 million copies, and translations into over 20 languages. As a DC staffer from 1973, Levitz was an assistant editor, the company’s youngest editor ever, and in a series of business capacities, became Executive Vice President & Publisher in 1989 and then served as President & Publisher from 2002-2009. He continues as a Contributing Editor, but is now concentrating on his writing.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10012
(btwn. Houston and Prince)

Exhibitor Registration Open for MoCCA Festival 2011

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – MoCCA is pleased to announce that Exhibitor Tables are now available for the MoCCA Festival 2011!

The 2011 Festival will take place over April 9 and 10. The annual two-day event attracts thousands of comic art lovers and creators from around the globe to celebrate one of the world’s most popular art forms in the heart of New York City. MoCCA Fest 2011 will again take place at the historic 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY.

Since 2002 the MoCCA Festival offers a unique venue to experience comics, minicomics, web comics, graphic novels, animation, posters, prints, original artwork, and more. Each year, the Festival invites dozens of established and emerging creators, scholars, and other experts to participate in two days of lecture/discussion panels on a variety of comics and cartoon topics. Past exhibitors include Abrams ComicArts, ACT-I-VATE, Ad House, Bill Plympton, Bries, Candle Light Press, Center for Cartoon Studies, Comics Bakery, Drawn & Quarterly, Evil Twin Comics, Fantagraphics, Hope Larson, Liz Baille, Pantheon, Rick Parker, School for Visual Arts, TopatoCo, Top Shelf, Tug Boat Press, World War III, and many, many more.

For the 2011 Festival MoCCA is offering special prices for student exhibitors: $295 for a full table, and just $177 for a half table. Students must include a copy of their valid student ID to be eligible for the special price. There are only a limited number of these student spaces available, so act fast!

Exhibitor Tables are now available for the MoCCA Festival 2011!
Now through December 31st exhibitor table prices are:
MoCCA Member Full Table: $360
General Full Table: $399
MoCCA Member 1/2 Table: $210
General 1/2 Table: $250
Student Full Table: $295
Student 1/2 Table: $177
(students must submit valid student ID with application)

Reserve your space now, as prices are guaranteed to go up after December 31st, 2010!

Registration forms are available on the MoCCA website at here!

Registrations will be accepted on a first come, first served basis beginning August 10th by fax (212-254-3590), mail (594 Broadway, ste. 401, New York, NY 10012), email (exhibitors@moccany.org), and in person only.

NYC – TV Funhouse at MoCCA

J.J. Sedelmaier and Joe Strike speak on Thursday, July 29, 7 PM

Admission: $5 | Free for MoCCA Members

Ambiguously Gay Duo (c) NBCUni/SNL

You may not be familiar with the name, but if you’ve seen MTV’s Beavis and Butthead, Saturday Night Live’s “Saturday TV Funhouse,” [adult swim's] Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law or Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen/Alpha Squad Seven, you’ve seen the work of J.J. Sedelmaier.

Since opening up his White Plains animation studio in 1990, J.J. and his studio have created hundreds of TV productions in an amazing variety of animation styles, from retro-1950′s TV commercials to transforming Garry Trudeau, Don Martin or Al Hirschfeld’s art into animated film form.

After screening samples of his studio’s work, J.J. and animation journalist and author Joe Strike will discuss his influences, career anecdotes and some of his best known and high-profile cartoons. In addition, J.J. talks about the forgotten history of the animation industry’s early 20th century New York origins.

For more about J.J. Sedelmaier please visit his website…

For more about Joe Strike please visit www.joestrike.com and www.animatorinterviews.com

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10012

NYC – Masterpiece Comics

R. Sikoryak and Bill Kartalopoulos in Conversation at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art

Thursday, July 15, 7 PM
Admission: $5 | Free for MoCCA Members

Join MoCCA for a special conversation between Masterpiece Comics author R. Sikoryak, and Bill Kartalopoulos, curator of the current exhibit R. Sikoryak: How Classics and Cartoons Collide. Sikoryak will reveal his intensive working process and will discuss the history of parody and adaptation in comics. This live conversation, illustrated with slides, will be followed by a reception to celebrate the exhibit.

Comics chameleon R. Sikoryak inventively adapts canonical Western literature using the visual styles and characters of historical American comic books and comic strips. Among his many works, Sikoryak has adapted Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in the style of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in the style of Tales From the Crypt, and the Book of Genesis in the style of Chic Young’s Blondie. These works have been collected in his 2009 book Masterpiece Comics (Drawn and Quarterly) and are the subject of R. Sikoryak: How Classics and Cartoons Collide.

About R. Sikoryak
R. Sikoryak’s cartoons and illustrations have appeared in The Onion, The New Yorker, Nickelodeon Magazine, Mad, Fortune, and many other publications; he’s drawn for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Ugly Americans. Sikoryak teaches in the illustration department at Parsons The New School for Design. Since 1997, he has presented his cartoon slide show series, Carousel, around the United States and Canada. 

About Bill Kartalopoulos
Bill Kartalopoulos teaches classes about comics and illustration at Parsons The New School for Design. He is a frequent public speaker and is the programming coordinator for SPX: The Small Press Expo and the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. He writes about comics for Print Magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and reviews comics for Publishers Weekly. He is a member of the Executive Committee for the International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF), an annual academic conference devoted to comics. In 2008 he curated Kim Deitch: A Retrospective at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. He lives in Brooklyn.

About Masterpiece Comics
Masterpiece Comics adapts a variety of classic literary works with the most iconic visual idioms of twentieth-century comics. Dense with exclamation marks and lurid colors, R. Sikoryak’s parodies remind us of the sensational excesses of the canon, or, if you prefer, of the economical expressiveness of classic comics from Batman to Garfield. In “Blond Eve,” Dagwood and Blondie are ejected from the Garden of Eden into their archetypal suburban home; Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray is reimagined as a foppish Little Nemo; and Camus’s Stranger becomes a brooding, chain-smoking Golden Age Superman. Other source material includes Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, bubblegum wrappers, superhero comics, kid cartoons, and more.

R. Sikoryak: How Classics and Cartoons Collide
June 15 through August 29, 2010

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10012

212-254-3511

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