"The Sleeker Superhero"

How much muscle does it take to look manly? But there’s a trickier follow-up: How much is too much?

The comic-book fantasy of humongous muscles "wore off when fitness gained widespread appeal, [Christopher] Hart says, "because, seriously, who wants to look like that?"

That's the central idea behind "The Sleeker Superhero," an article posted at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette website on Monday. In it, writer Ron Wolfe interviews Christopher Hart, the author of many "how-to-draw" books, about his latest, Simplified Anatomy for the Comic Book Artist.

For background information, Wolfe compares the popular conception of the über-muscled superhero with another comic-book mainstay, bodybuilder Charles Atlas, whose advertisements for the "dynamic tension" exercise program appeared for decades. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the article quotes "The Ad that Made an Icon Out of Mac!," my essay that appears at the Hogan's Alley website. It's always encouraging to see your writing put to use.

Graphic Short Story Prize (U.K.: 3 September 2007)

Received from Random House UK: A great opportunity for cartoonists who reside in the UK or the Republic of Ireland, offering a chance at publication and prizes. The Graphic Short Story Prize is sponsored by The Observer, Jonathan Cape, and the Comica Festival. The judges are first-rate, so the results should be well-worth the attention of cartooning fans. Here's the official announcement:

Are you an aspiring graphic novelist? Do you have an imaginative and original story to tell?

Take this opportunity to get your work read by industry experts. The judges are:

Nick Hornby
Posy Simmonds
Rachel Cooke (The Observer)
Dan Franklin (Publisher, Jonathan Cape)
Paul Gravett (Comica Festival Director)
Suzanne Dean (Random House Creative Director)

The overall winner will receive a prize of £1000 and their graphic short story will be printed across a whole page of The Observer

The runner-up will receive £250

Deadline for entries: Monday 3rd September 2007

The winner will be printed in The Observer on 14th October and the prize will be awarded at Comica Festival at the ICA in London on 20th October

Click here for the official website; click here for the entry form (31KB PDF file).

[Note that an alternate version of the entry form includes a slightly different wording for section (e) of the Entry Specifications: "printed on no larger than A4-sized sheets and submitted as flat work (i.e. not as a booklet) with a view to printing in a newspaper/publishing online and displaying at Comica."]

Link

CFP: The Secret (And Not So Secret) Origins of Comic Books (NEMLA, April 10-13, 2008)

Received from William Duffy. For more information, email William. See also the NEMLA website.

The Secret (And Not So Secret) Origins of Comic Books
This panel seeks papers that analyze the relationship between the comic book genre and its literary, mythological, and historical influences. The issues that this panel hopes to address include, but are not limited to, the following: the motivations behind comic books' appropriation of characters and ideas from other genres, the ways in which these characters and ideas change to fit the needs of the comic form, and how being adapted to comic books affects the popular view of the source material. Please email 250-500 word abstracts (in an attachment) to wsduffy@buffalo.edu. Note: Deadline for abstracts is September 15, 2007.