The New Age of Animation (And How We Got Here) and Common Ground Update...

A brand-new book from my good amigo Mike Dobbs aka G. Michael Dobbs is hot off the presses, and I'll be writing about it here in the coming week (once my copy is in my steaming little mitts). That sweet cover is by Mark Martin, too, another draw for old-timers and 'toon lovers alike.

With Bee Movie and Beowulf -- the former in theaters everywhere now, the latter coming in a week or so -- representing the polar extremes of contemporary American feature animation, Mike's book is more timely than ever.

Escape! How Animation Broke into the Mainstream in the 1990s is the title, and the subject is indeed the transition animation and animated features have made into wider and adult venues, out of the G-rated family and "children's matinee" territory the medium was consigned to for so long. It's been a gradual process, with landmarks like Ralph Bakshi's 1970s and '80s features (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Fire & Ice, American Pop, etc.), The Simpsons, Spike & Mike's festivals, the anime explosion and much, much more peppering the landscape. But it all changed bigtime in the 1990s, and that's the turf Mike tills in his new book.

Mike's Escape! is available to you all, here and now, via Oldies.com -- place your order now!

Here's the link for UK animation lovers and fans to pick up their copies,

so it's now in reach on both sides of the Atlantic, folks. Get it while it's hot!

More on Escape! in the coming days...
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As I've mentioned here before, I served on the Board of Directors for the Common Ground Restaurant in Brattleboro, VT from 2005-6, an active part of the communal effort to resurrect this venerable collective (worker-owned) eatery after a quarter-century of serving great, healthy food to the community and a few years of limbo after that collective collapsed and evaporated. When Marge and I moved out of the Brattleboro/Marlboro area late last year, I stepped down from the Board, just as the new Common Ground reopened its doors.

It's been quite a year for the Common Ground, full of highs and lows and the inevitable birth pangs and initial growth spasms, culminating in -- sigh -- the closing of the restaurant a week or so ago. But it isn't over yet, not by a long shot, and here's hoping the Common Ground's resurrection (and, now, transmutation) gains a new head of steam.

Here's the iBrattleboro.com article, which provides the best current overview of a complex situation,

and the Brattleboro Reformer piece on the Common Ground.

Have a great Friday, one and all, and see you here this weekend. Next weekend I'll be visiting and interviewing my worldly and overworked friend Neil Gaiman, so I'll be out of the blogosphere for a few days the end of next week and weekend. Adios for now...

Sundays -- Updates, Links, Pix and Pox

I've been holding off announcing this for some time (in part due to Marvel's inexcusable late payment to yours truly), but it's Halloween week -- and I can't hold off any longer. If you can afford it, pick up a copy of the new Marvel Omnibus: Amazing Fantasy ("The Magazine That Respects Your Intelligence!"), if only to savor my two-page introduction to the Amazing Adventures portion of the collection.

Canada's beloved premiere Steve Ditko expert Blake Bell introduces the Amazing Adult Fantasy half of the tome, which concludes (natch) with the historic Amazing Fantasy #15 debut of Spider-Man. Read for the first time since its publication in the complete context of the Twilight Zone-like comic series Stan Lee and Steve Ditko took such personal pride in, Spider-Man is even more revelatory; if only for that, this omnibus is worth picking up. It ain't cheap -- take the cover shot pictured here and replace the 12-cent price bullet with $75, folks -- but it's part of my bibliography now, so I reckon a plug here is appropo this week.

The deepest discount I'm finding online is at Amazon.com, and here's the link.

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Better yet, there's new work coming out of The Center for Cartoon Studies. I've savored some great comics and mini-comics this past week from the CCS community -- alumni Josie Whitmore's moving In Which I Think About Drowning, graced with a CD The Small Planets: Bike (music by Josie and Ben Moy); JP Coovert's one-two punch Press Start and companion minicomic And Fight, a beautifully crafted introspective (and playful, in more ways than one) creation; Penina Gal's enigmatic mini Enjoy the Fish, Sam J. Carbaugh's collected works These Things Happen #1 -- all great stuff.

JP's new (and elder) comics can always be found here,

Josie's website awaits you here,

and Ben and Josie's Small Planets site orbits in virtual space here.

Check 'em out, please!

Nice to see CCSers getting more online attention -- here's the latest, senior Sean Ford's second issue of Only Skin garnering some deserved attention --

-- and that will only continue to gain momentum in the coming months. There's even talk of a couple new anthologies, one of which I've committed to doing a piece for; more news as things come together, and the respective anthology founders/editors make formal announcements.

Page 13 of Dan Archer's 24 Hour Comic from last weekend -- link below!

Last weekend, the Center for Cartoon Studies hosted its own 24-Hour Comic marathon, and here's the pix to prove it --

-- and here's the link to the first of the comics posted online, from CCS freshman Dan Archer (and a mighty sharp comic it is, too, Dan!).

And that ain't all, folks. It's been a lively week since at CCS and in White River Junction.

Here's pix from CCS senior Bryan Stone covering last night's White River Junction Halloween parade and events, which brought out the town en force -- as participants!

As Bryan puts it, "There had to be at least a few hundred people in the parade...and like, three spectators..."

That's what's happening in WRJ: a whole new community on the rise, but we need to build/draw an audience from the wider surrounding communities. It'll happen, in time! Friday night I hosted a Halloween film event at the Main Street Museum, hosted by MSM founder/curator David Fairbanks Ford, and we ended up with a good crowd, half-CCSers, half from the wider community. As I headed home, a music event on Main Street seemed to draw a fair crowd of teenagers and high schoolers. Bit by bit, event by event, the WRJ community is coming together anew...

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I've kept tabs with my old stomping grounds down south, too. Let's see, Yankee Nuclear Power remains a center of controversy, my daughter Maia Rose has moved closer to said nuke plant (reckon I didn't show her enough 1950s atomic age mutant movies when she was a wee lass!), and -- well, they're stilling bickering over legislating against public nudity, for whatever that's worth.

Got the sad news that the Common Ground Restaurant in Brattleboro, VT -- on which I served the Board of Directors for a year or so in the hopes of resurrecting the restaurant -- is closing; but the Common Ground Club is opening and keeps the venerable Common Ground tradition alive.

Kudos to HomeyM for the updates and the ibrattleboro posts, and here's hoping the Common Ground finds new life in its latest incarnation.

Have a grand Sunday, one and all!