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Appearing on comics panel this Tuesday in LA

I’m cross-posting this from the Candorville Facebook group (if you’re not already a fan, go there and become a fan already or I’ll have to give you the swine flu):

I’m a late addition to a cartoonists’ panel this Tuesday in LA’s Echo Park. It’s part of 826LA’s adult writing seminar series. I agreed to do it before I looked at the names of the other panelists, which was probably wise. I’ll explain:

I learned to write by reading comic books back in the early ’80s. Every report I would go on to turn in in school – whether it was about George Washington Carver or cell mitosis – would have a beginning, a middle and an end. A hero and a villain. A “B story.” An unexpected death (either literal or figurative) to raise the stakes at the beginning of Act Three. Enemies closing in and all seeming lost. A triumphant resurrection of either the deceased or his cause. Victory, pyrrhic or decisive. A final image that bookended and reversed the opening image. My teachers never knew why they loved my writing so much, but I always knew why I would get nothing but A’s and B’s even when I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about: Everything I turned in was structured exactly like a comic book story. Teachers are just people, and all people love stories.

new_graphic_novel1785To me, the masters of the craft were Chris Claremont (X-Men), Marv Wolfman (The New Teen Titans), and a couple new guys, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. I took the name of the evil multinational corporation (Trigon Corp) that’s trying to buy Lemont’s newspaper straight from Wolfman’s seminal New Teen Titans saga. Several of Candorville’s villains have been patterned at least a little on Wolfman’s Trigon.

So, who are the other cartoonists on this panel? The brilliant Lalo Alcaraz (La Cucaracha) and Jaime Hernandez (Love & Rockets), and MARV f-ing WOLFMAN! Man, when that guy speaks I’ll probably want to run around to the other side of the table, pull up a folding chair and take notes.

Tickets are still available at the 826LA website.

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