Gilbert Hernandez Wins PEN Center Award!

Click here for all the awesome details! Well-deserved, Beto! In other news, brother Jaime was honored with another PENny Century award. ;)

Seriously, though, it's great to see this American Maestro get the attention he deserves.

Art Spiegelman on NPR: Co-Mix-in it Up.

Click here for the September 14, 2013 interview. It promotes his new book Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics and Scraps.

BAREFOOT GEN Pulled from Japanese Primary, Middle School System

The excellent manga Barefoot Gen has been removed from shelves in primary and middle schools in Matsue, Japan. While teachers can still teach the text, it appears students will no longer be able to find the book in library stacks. Read the CBLDF press release on the subject here.

I wrote the rationale for this graphic novel's use in classrooms for the Teaching Rationales for Graphic Novels ebook/CD-rom project published  through Maupin House. I feel strongly that Barefoot Gen is an important text worthy of study and which should be accessible to all readers. I hope the school officials reconsider their decision, which was based on the book's portrayal of Japanese troops, apparently.

I was approached by a Japanese public television show to do an interview on the importance of this text and using it in classes. I couldn't commit due to my move to Washington, but now I wish I could have found the time.

2013 Eisner Awards Noms Made Public!

Click here or here to learn about the comics nominated for the award consistently referred to as the Oscars of the Comics! Maybe one day I'll get to judge these things. I hear it is a heck of a process! *Hint!Hint! To anyone reading!*

Satrapi Weighs in on Persepolis Ban

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is keeping this ever-befuddling clusterflub from Chicago Public Schools fresh in our minds by helping share Marjane Satrapi's thoughts on the subject. I am excited to see her talk about the issue, and frustrated that CPS is requiring an ambiguous type of training to teachers before they teach the book. Pseudo-censorship at its finest, laced with half-baked stories and rumors and very little transparent truth from CPS beyond a "We'll do what we want" rhetoric.