On July 12 underground comic strip author Harvey Pekar passed away at age 70. I am not going to pretend that I had heard of him before the brilliant film version of American Splendor came out in 2003. To add insult to injury, I didn’t even particularly enjoy his long rants about.. all kinds of things, except for the R. Crumb drawings. On the other hand he definitely influenced a lot of autobiographical comic book artists and he has made it acceptable for underground authors not to draw their own strips. There’s two caricatures of Pekar on toonpool.com, one signed by the man himself and one without a nose.
On a more positive note, long-term toonpool.com member Ben Heine married his girlfriend Marta on June 26. Last week, he posted a photo. Congratulations and all the best from the toonpool.com team.
I actually wanted to write about the annoyingly high temperatures in Berlin. What can I say.. it’s actually quite nice and cool today. So there’s no reason to post cartoons about smelling bad let alone heat-related madness or aggression. Last week’s trouble with broken air-conditioning in German trains may have inspired at least three cartoons about how trains are like saunas (1,2,3) but this, too, should be over by now. Since temperatures are at normal again, there also is no need for using glue sticks for refreshment. Bah. Stupid summer slump.
Cartoons of Interest
My favorite cartoon this week is “Angst im Dunkeln” (“Fear in the Dark”) by H Mercker. It’s a beautifully-blue watercolor meta-cartoon. The caption translates to “The longer I keep talking now, the bigger this speech bubble will grow. Consequently, chances increase that the monster lurking behind it will not see me.”
Please also note that Michele Rocchetti has uploaded some new vector caricatures after six months of silence. There’s celebrities like Lady Gaga and Pasolini, but there’s also a number of fictional characters that are distorted even stronger (here, here & here).
Finally, there’s a moment of watermelon zen by Giuseppe Scapigliati.
© toonpool.comTags: Harvey Pekar, last week, letzte woche
