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Monday, June 4th, 2012
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12:36 pm - Dino FAQ
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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009
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1:18 am - INDIE PULP: Dean Haspiel and ACT-I-VATE in Chicago, 11/13/09
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| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
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11:02 am - ACT-I-VATE: A-OKAY COOL in "Flight of the Yellow Kite"
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3:32 am - KING CON/AMES & HASPIEL SPOTLIGHT review by Jon Abrams
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KING CON BROOKLYN, Day One by Jon Abrams
SPOTLIGHT ON JONATHAN AMES & DEAN HASPIEL
"Jonathan Ames is an unusual novelist and essayist; Dean Haspiel is an uncommon cartoonist. They’re quintessential Brooklyn artists, and they’re friends. Their collaboration so far has produced the Vertigo graphic novel The Alcoholic (highly recommended), some memorable cartoons in Ames’ recent essay collection The Double Life Is Twice As Good (also recommended), and the current HBO show Bored To Death. (You must watch this show.) I’ve seen these guys at readings before and they’re always entertaining, to say the least. Ames’s work is unparalleled in its ability to meld the urbane and the literate with the emotionally perceptive and the stingingly melancholy and the unapologetically and gleefully scatological. He can write or say some of the most graphic and perverted things and somehow give the observations a gentleness and an innocence. It’s a great counterpoint with Haspiel, who in person is the most gregarious guy in the room (Zach Galifianakis’s character on Bored To Death is “loosely” based on him), and whose drawings (of which I am a tremendous fan) are full of energy and life and character. His boisterous work has been compared to that of Jack Kirby, the legendary Marvel Comics artist, but Haspiel is far less concerned with the cosmic and much more attuned to human relationships and interactions. Even though I’d heard some of the stories recounted at the panel already, when these guys are talking you can never be bored. Watch Bored To Death, please."
originally posted at: http://www.mapcidy.com/king-con-brooklyn-day-one
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| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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12:44 pm - The ACT-I-VATE Experience in Chicago w/Hall & Haspiel
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| Friday, November 6th, 2009
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2:43 pm - Comic Critique reviews THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER
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http://www.comiccritique.com/cgi-bin/greview.pl?id=643
Reviewed by Adam McGovern
Excerpts:
"The Act-i-vate Primer is Exhibit A in the hopeful internet-era maxim that if you hook them, they will buy. The Act-i-vate collective has done more than anyone to confirm webcomics as an artform, and this collection of priceless print-only stories from their free online series will with any justice go far to establishing it as an industry too."
"The range of interests, level of storytelling and sheer wealth of style are staggering. I haven’t been this anxious to curl up with a colorful collection of the medium’s possibilities since The Great Comic Book Heroes in nineteen-seventy-never-mind. The golden age of comics gets its restart here."
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10:22 am - 24/Seven: Mighty King Con comes to Brooklyn
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2:10 am - CBR reviews THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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11:52 am - Dean Haspiel’s Top 5 Non-Comic Book Influences
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This article originally appeared at GRAPHIC NYC: http://graphicnyc.blogspot.com/2009/10/influencing-comics-1-dean-haspiels-top.html
SERGIO LEONE -- A master of cinema, Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns understood that drama was more intense when staggered and played out in hyper-realistic time. Matched only by his method to smash extreme close-ups against extreme far shots, Leone blurred the vistas between flesh and landscape, plastering the silver screen with a blue sky backdrop of molten mesas and human pores, baked blood and boiled sweat, squinting eyes and smoking guns, recorded on the bedrock of Italy's scorched earth. The subtle sound of “the man with no name’s” gun click was always more powerful than its bang made sinister by Ennio Morricone's haunting musical score. All home movie libraries should house the works of Sergio Leone, Elia Kazan, Preston Sturges, Bruce Lee, Martin Scorcese, Alex Cox, The Coen Bros., Quentin Tarantino, and Park Chan-Wook, but Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West may be my favorite movie of all time.
BEA ARTHUR -- Who knew that a controversial, 47-year old, silver-haired, deep voiced, "handsome woman" could capture the heart and mind of a 5-year old boy in 1972? I certainly didn't until Maude came out on DVD recently and opened up a floodgate of treasured memories. Little was I aware of how much Bea Arthur's original yet caustic characterization of a flawed yet righteous, middle-aged Valkyrie emerging as a taboo breaking feminist cum “Golden Girl,” fighting tooth and nail for a better tomorrow, could sustain such a grip on me throughout my decades. Her compassion for truth, justice, and liberty was balanced only by her passionate conflicts with Walter, her alcoholic yet heart-bound husband. To this day, I confuse conflict with love.
AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE SOUL SONIC FORCE -- Before I locked my musical play list on regular rotation between the likes of Prince, Joy Division, Max Romeo, The Clash, Throbbing Gristle, Daft Punk, and Blossom Dearie, there was only one essential song that ever mattered to me and that was Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force's "Planet Rock." Hip-hop was on the verge and NYC was looking for the perfect beat and it synthesized in 1982 with "Planet Rock,” the primordial, black and white electric anthem of my high school years that continues to transcend my work and global outlook on life.
HAMMER HORROR -- I was hidden under the covers as a six-fingered claymation hand arose from a bloody swamp accompanied by creepy reverb-heavy music in that terrifying 1970s "Chiller Theater" television opening, paving the way for reruns of 1960s Hammer Horror movies. The vivid, limited comic book colors and chop shop monster masks made for a scarier experience than today's best special effects, and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee owned the genre. The low-budget creatures and European, mad scientist sets inspired Brawl, my psychotronic, "creature romance double feature," comic book mini-series collaboration with cartoonist, Michel Fiffe, featuring Billy Dogma. The Evil of Frankenstein makes for a great Hammer Horror introduction to a slew of top-notch monster movies before the genre passed the baton to mad men classics like Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Joe Spinell's Maniac, and John Carpenter's Halloween, and The Thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XThW0TWVgVo
RICHARD S. PRATHER – The hard-boiled, pheromone-rich pulp that made up Richard S. Prather's perverted purple prose in his library of Shell Scott detective novels made a significant impact on my very own Billy Dogma banter. In 1985, my mentor, Howard Chaykin, introduced me to crime noir with Jim Thompson's Pop 1280 and The Killer Inside Me, and, later, Frank Miller's Sin City would inspire me to seek the hyperbole of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels, but it was Prather's special brand of erotic scandal that wooed me with, "She was a full-lipped and hipped Italian tomato with Rome burning in her eyes,” in his 1969 novel, Kill Me Tomorrow.
c.2009 Dean Haspiel
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| Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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12:59 pm - ACT-I-VATE: A-OKAY COOL in "Bobbing on the Brink of Breaking Fast"
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12:57 pm - DoubleX: Comics Isn't a Boys' Club Anymore by Sasha Watson
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http://www.doublex.com/section/arts/comics-isnt-boys-club-anymore
Excerpt:
"Dean Haspiel, a cartoonist who collaborated with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic and who curates the web comics collective ACT-I-VATE, is one of the slated contributors. “When they first approached me, I said, ‘Feminism, huh,’ ” he says. “The way I approach writing women is the same way I approach writing men: as people,” he adds. If the concept of feminism didn’t feel all that inspirational, Haspiel says he realized that “I’d love to do a story that acknowledges and celebrates my mother and all the work she did in the arts.” Haspiel’s mother served for many years as deputy director of the New York State Council of the Arts."
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| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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12:03 pm - THE ACT-I-VATE SALON - videos
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| Monday, November 2nd, 2009
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8:17 pm - Tim Hall and Jen Ferguson bring you MONSTER MASHUPS
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Tim Hall (writer) and Jen Ferguson (artist) began collaborating late in the summer of 2009, when Tim became aware of Jen’s peculiar art and vice-versa: a working friendship was born. Tim Hall had begun “Uplift the Positivicals,” a new “comic without comics” (somewhat like Hazel Motes’ “Church of Christ Without Christ” in Flannery O’Connor’s novel “Wise Blood”) on Act-i-vate.com, a webcomix collective founded by mutual friend and artist Dean Haspiel. Tim asked Jen to illustrate some of his most demented passages, which turned out to be the perfect assignment for the artist, who years earlier had nearly been booted out of an illustration program at Pratt and sworn off anything that involved “assignments.” Tim’s first request of Jen is that she draw a plushie’s fantasy: a Paddington Bear bed with mechanical arms. After this intriguing first request, stranger ones followed.
Monster Mash-ups is an art & writing project depicting the lesser known aspects of some of the most notorious creatures in the Western lexicon of horror.
http://monstermashups.wordpress.com/
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6:15 pm - SPOTLIGHT on Ames & Haspiel at King Con, Nov. 7th
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2:33 pm - My art for episode 7 of Jonathan Ames' BORED TO DEATH.
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1:12 pm - Michel Fiffe's ACT-I-VATE SALON review
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12:29 pm - ACT-I-VATE at KING CON
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http://www.kingconbrooklyn.com/
Please join ACT-I-VATE this weekend as we celebrate KING CON, Brooklyn's very first comic convention at the Brooklyn Lyceum. We will be making our NYC debut of THE ACT-I-VATE EXPERIENCE, and signing and selling copies of our new print anthology, THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER. Plus, we'll have other books and goodies at our table.
Here are some of the highlights and panels members from ACT-I-VATE are participating in:
FRIDAY - NOVEMBER 6TH 2009 - 8PM sharp
THE ACT-I-VATE EXPERIENCE - NYC DEBUT + PRE-PARTY SCREENING
The story of the preeminent webcomix collective. A documentary film directed by
Seth Kushner + Carlos Molina. Featuring interviews with Nick Bertozzi, Kevin Colden, Molly Crabapple, Simon Fraser, Mike Cavallaro, Dan Goldman, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, and others as they discuss the genesis of ACT-I-VATE, its impact on the art and business of comics, and its future both online and on the printed page.
SATURDAY - NOVEMBER 7TH 2009
THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER: SATURDAY 12PM-12:50PM
Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma), Mike Cavallaro (Loviathan), Leland Purvis (Vulcan & Vishnu), Tim Hamilton (Adventures of the Floating Elephant), Simon Fraser (Lilly MacKenzie), Molly Crabapple (Backstage), Joe Infurnari [ULTRA-Lad!), Tim Hall (Uplift the Postivicals), and moderator, Jeff Newelt (SMITH Magazine comics editor), discuss the genesis of THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER, the premiere webcomix collective's first print anthology, and ACT-I-VATE'S impact on both the art, business, and future of comics.
SPOTLIGHT ON JONATHAN AMES & DEAN HASPIEL: SATURDAY 4PM-4:50PM
Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel elaborate on their multi-media collaborations, which include their graphic novel, "The Alcoholic," Ames' latest essay collection, "The Double Life Is Twice As Good," and the HBO show, "Bored To Death."
SUNDAY - NOVEMBER 8TH 2009
ZUDA: SUNDAY 3PM-3:50PM
Join Ron Perazza (ZUDA COMICS), Kwanza Johnson (ZUDA COMICS), Bobby Timony & Peter Timony (Minion Maze, THE NIGHT OWLS), David Gallaher (HIGH MOON, Box 13), Steve Ellis (HIGH MOON, Box 13), Kevin Colden (Fishtown, I RULE THE NIGHT), Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, STREET CODE) and others for an inclusive, roundtable discussion about the advantages, challenges, questions, solutions, costs and benefits of making webcomics for fun and profit. Topics include working with a publisher, self-publishing, promoting yourself, best practices, style and moving from web to print (or vice-versa)!
DIGITAL COMICS ROUNDTABLE: SUNDAY 4PM-4:50PM
MODERATOR: Mike Zagari
ZUDA, Ron Perazza & Kwanza Johnson
ACT-I-VATE, Mike Cavallaro
COMIXOLOGY, John Roberts & David Steinberger
SMITH MAGAZINE, Jeff Newelt
& more to come!
For more panel information, including spotlights on GRAPHIC NYC, Harvey Pekar and The Pekar Project, and Bob Fingerman, go to:
http://www.kingconbrooklyn.com/panels/
original blog post: http://www.act-i-vate.com/pressblog?viewcomment=y&blogid=171
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| Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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12:42 pm - PopMatters reviews the ACT-I-VATE PRIMER
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http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/115439-the-act-i-vate-primer/
"As someone who already spends more time in front of a computer than I would like, I often have trouble remembering to keep up with the webcomics I enjoy and feel intimidated by works that require me to catch up on 200 pages of backstory to enjoy the newest page. The ACT-I-VATE Primer serves as a good print introduction to these works, and I hope some of the longer running stories on the site find their way into print as well."
--Zane Austin Grant
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10:42 am - TONIGHT: THE ACT-I-VATE SALON / Book Court at 7pm
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We've selected six stories that will be read from the ACT-I-VATE PRIMER for our ACT-I-VATE SALON at Book Court tonight from 7pm - 9pm.
Book Court is located at 163 Court Street in Brooklyn, NY. (718) 875-3677. F or G train to Bergen Street subway stop. http://www.bookcourt.org/
"Cactus" by Michel Fiffe and friends
"When Lilly met Cosmo" by Simon Fraser and Becky Cloonan
"Slow News Day" by Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt
"Veils" by Mike Cavallaro and friends
"Bring me the heart of Billy Dogma" by Dean Haspiel and Joan Reilly [and, MAYBE, a surprise guest]
"All men are whores" by Maurice Fontenot
The readings shouldn't take more than an hour and then all the readers, including other contributors to the ACT-I-VATE PRIMER will sign books for the rest of the event before heading off to a nearby bar for celebratory drinks.
Hope to see you there!
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2:47 am - NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR - Radar video
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