Weekend Reading: Frazetta, Viz, Carl Barks and Facebook

You know it’s going to be a bad week when one of the most beloved fantasy artists passes away. He was absolutely one of my favorite artists and one of the first artists who, like Jack Kirby, could get me to buy pretty much anything with his name on it.

Tom Spurgeon has an excellent overview of the late artist’s career. “Frazetta’s art on the Warren Magazines Creepy, Eerie and eventually Vampirella combined some of the pulp tendencies for which he was soon to become very well known with a sense of classic horror. They remain some of the company’s most iconic pieces of art.”

Viz Media: I often post job listings here for Viz Media, the longtime manga publisher in San Francisco – longtime as in they’ve been doing it since it wasn’t quite so cool to do it. So I was saddened to hear that they let go more than 50 of their staffers. That’s, I think, the largest layoff of comics professionals that I can remember and certainly the largest in recent years. I hate to see that kind of thing happen, and I wish everyone the best as they figure out what to do next. Heidi MacDonald at Comics Beat recently posted this link from Dan Blank’s website; I’ve practically memorized it.

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BRITISH COMICS: The Beano & Dennis The Menace & Bash Street

I’m only mildly familiar with the British tradition known as The Beano. I know there’s a British version of Dennis the Menace who bears no resemblance to Hank Ketcham’s creation beyond the idea that they’re both right little stinkers. And I know that the weekly Beano has been published for decades. So I was really looking forward to grabbing a couple of issues.

First of all, it was hard to find a copy. On the newsstand, especially the independent corner ones that are just outside the Tube stops, I couldn’t find a copy and the vendors just shook their heads when I asked. It took a trip to Border’s, yes that Border’s, to grab them. I picked up The Beano #3490 (July 4, 2009) and The Beano #3491 (July 11, 2009). Both issues have all the regular features. Dennis is there (along with an effeminate gang of rivals called The Softies), Minnie The Minx (the world’s wildest Tomboy), Bea & Ivy (a sort of Muppet Babies version of Dennis and his friends), The Bash Street Kids (the perennial favorite created long ago by the great Leo Baxendale), Ball Boy (he’s football crazy), Rasher (Dennis’ pet pig), The Numskulls, Freddie Fear (the son of a witch), Billy The Whiz (the fastest boy in the world) and several others.

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