Rocktober

Hmm, no updates in a month. Must be teaching season.

Today kicks off a busy couple of weeks. Up first, Marjane Satrapi visits CCAD this Tuesday. I’ve been teaching Persepolis since 2009, so I’m thrilled to meet her. On Thursday, Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky of Sex Criminals infamy visit the college for a lecture (sans brimping, I hope) and a class visit. I was going to write about my thoughts on the series, and I still might, but it all boils down to this: At odds with the weird combination of sexless characters and subtextual, adolescent eroticism in so many mainstream superhero/adventure/what-have-you comic books, Sex Criminals is honest, smart, and hilarious. It’s also bringing back the letters column, or it should. Fraction and Zdarsky deserve to win an award of some kind. Maybe an Eisner.*

Next week, Jonathan Franzen visits CCAD. His talk sounds intriguing. So yeah. Talk about an intense week: Satrapi, Fraction/Zdarsky, Franzen in less than seven days. Then I’m off to NYC to present a paper at SVA’s conference on the humanities and visual arts. The last time I was in the city, I walked from Central Park to CBGB’s. I don’t think I have that in me this time.

If you’re in the city and want to me up, and I know you, get in touch. If I owe you money…then I’m not really visiting the city, sorry to get your hopes up. But I’m good for it, I swear.

Meanwhile, my review of the documentary about John Porcellino, Root Hog or Die, should be up at The Comics Journal any day now. I’m sending out my novel to agents, submitting short stories, working–ahem–on my paper for ICAF in November, and grading, grading, grading. Rockstar life in Rocktober.

*They did. 2014 Eisner for Best New Series.