Jim Keefe is the current artist of the Sally Forth comic strip. From 1996-2003 he was the writer and artist of the Flash Gordon comic strip. A graduate of the Joe Kubert School, Keefe likewise teaches Comic Art. Teaching and speaking engagements include SVA in Manhattan, Hofstra’s UCCE Youth Programs, and most recently the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
I recently had the opportunity to attend http://cowmanauction.com/style.php Q-Con XXII in Belfast, Ireland. It was held June 19-21 and is one of Ireland’s biggest gaming and anime conventions.
Q-Con XXII – Queen’s University Belfast, Student Union
A special thanks to http://ifcus.org/legion.php Aíne (red shirt) and Alianne (blue shirt) at registration who got me all set up when I got there.
On a side note, the neck lanyards they gave you on arrival were amazing. They contained all the information you needed and more – incredibly handy.
2015 Q-Con XXII neck lanyard/badge holder.
Of particular interest to me was Q-Con’s Artist Alley.
The following are just a few of the items I picked up.
Note: Click on the pics to go to the artists’ websites.
Late Night with David Letterman premiered in 1982 and was a staple of my tv viewing during my formative years (ages 17 on up).
Bill Murray and David Letterman – 1982
Madonna and Sandra Bernhard on Late Night with David Letterman – 1988
When I first moved out to New Jersey to go to the Kubert School, one of the first priorities was to get on the waiting list for tickets to a taping of Letterman.
Letterman caricature done my first year of the Joe Kubert School – January 1987
When I eventually did get tickets, it was a show featuring Jerry Garcia & Bobby Weir from the Grateful Dead. Going to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to see the taping was one of those memories that stay with you. The lobby at 30 Rock was filled with Dead Heads offering hundreds of dollars for anyone wishing to sell their tickets. (The tickets were free). Having waited so long to get the tickets, selling them never crossed my mind.
When Letterman eventually moved to CBS and the Ed Sullivan Theater I mailed in a request to be put on the waiting list again. The Late Show with David Letterman debuted August 30, 1993, and I was able to get tickets within the first few weeks of it’s premiere.
Top image: Postcard saying you were on the waiting list. Bottom image: Ticket to the Late Show.
Having been passed over to host the Tonight Show in favor of Jay Leno, Letterman’s move to CBS with his own show was monumental and every show those first few weeks Letterman got a standing ovation. The show I attended was no exception. Coincidentally Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead was on the show that night as well, playing with Paul Shaffer and “The World’s Most Dangerous Band.”
Initially Letterman’s Late Show beat out the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the ratings, but eventually the ratings slipped and Letterman was behind Leno and Ted Koppel’s Nightline in the ratings. Right in view of the Ed Sullivan theater a billboard went up in Times Square proclaiming Leno as number one.
Letterman followed up brilliantly with the following…
One of the things that made Letterman so great was that he had on guests no one else knew how to handle (Howard Stern, Andy Kaufman and Richard Simmons come to mind), and though sometimes there was a danger of the segment jumping the rails, Letterman always kept it on track and made it memorable.
And then of course there were guests that no one else would have had on. Like underground comics creator Harvey Pekar…
Letterman was the gold standard as far as talk show hosts go in my book.
Norm MacDonald (at the end of this stand-up clip) has summed it up better than anyone else, so I’ve leaving with the following…
From 2004 -2010 I lettered a book for Viz Media called Whistle!
The story and art were by Daisuke Higuchi. I lettered pretty much the whole run and in doing so became a big fan of Higuchi as a storyteller. The following is a brief bio that ran in the series’ final issue.
Daisuke Higuchi’s manga career began in 1992 when the artist was honored with third prize in the 43rd Osamu Tezuka Award. In that same year, Higuchi deputed as creator of a romantic action story titled Itaru. In 1998, Weekly Shonen Jump began serializing Whistle! Higuchi’s realistic soccer manga became an instant hit with readers and eventually inspired an anime series, debuting on Japanese TV in May of 2002.
Daisuke Higuchi
In a nutshell, Whistle! is about a young middle school boy named Shō Kazamatsuri who’s one and only dream is to play soccer but because of his small stature he has to overcome adversity after adversity to do so – he also serves as an inspiration to to his friends and teammates, drawing them closer together – classic underdog story.
Whistle cast with Shō in the foreground.
Note: For the uninitiated, the accompanying pages are read right to left – not left to right..
Page that starts out each volume if you open it the wrong way.
The following pages show a great sense of design as Daisuke Higuchi freezes a moment and shows different aspects of a scene. In the scene on the left, the opposing team has just made the winning goal. In the scene on the right, Shō’s teammate Hiroyoshi has accidentally made a goal for the opposing team.
Click on image to enlarge.
More of the same, but in these two cases the focus is on characterization…
Click on image to enlarge.
The following is from a particularly strong sequence from Volume 12.
First a little back story from the previous issue; Shō has just made a near impossible shot tying the game – but the coaches see something else…
Click on image to enlarge.
The scene that follows opens with Shō and his friend Tatsuya showing up at Tatsuya’s father’s house (who he is estranged with). Tatsuya’s father is a soccer coach for a rival team and has some old soccer footage he wants Shō to see – at the same time some other coaches are meeting for lunch, and Akira (the female coach) echos Tatsuya’s father’s sentiments.
There’s so much to love in that scene.
• The way the dialogue bounces back and forth between the two characters speaking.
• The look of sheer joy on Akira’s face as a young girl followed by the more reflective aspects as an adult.
• The projector on the bottom of page 42 seen as just a glowing light.
• The end shot of Shō as he stares entranced at the footage of a father he never knew.
Beautiful stuff.
Stephen King in his book “On Writing” states, “I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.”
There are a million underdog stories out there, the ones that resonate come not from the story construct but from how deeply you’re invested in the characters. Higuchi’s strength as a storyteller is her engaging cast of characters.
You can check out Whistle! at your local library’s manga section.
To purchase, go to Viz.com or Amazon (to name a few).
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