Hindsight

Alison and I went to see Brian Selznick deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Friday on night at the MLK branch of the DC Public Library. Brian gave a very beautiful, deep and thought-provoking speech (no surprise). Afterward I introduced myself (and showed him my sketches) and he said he’s a fan of my books– which is one of those things that just kind of blows your mind when it comes from someone of his stature in the book world!

I’m quite happy with these sketches, though I was too far away to see a lot of facial details of any of the speakers, or to note that Brian’s suit had a super-elegant indigo paisley pattern on it.

Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics*, has a huge new book out called The Sculptor, and he’s on a 14-city tour promoting it. Last night I went to see him at Politics & Prose, in conversation with Michael Cavna of the Washington Post. The conversation was wide-ranging, and offered great glimpses into McCloud’s applied philosophy of comics storytelling. I’ll say more about the new book, but first some sketches:

(I found Scott’s likeness a bit hard to capture, so I’m afraid most of these aren’t great likenesses. Michael is easy though.)

The Sculptor is massive in scale, and ambitious in its goals. Scott hits the big universal themes: love, life, death, and art, and digs into each one pretty deeply in the course of 500 pages, bringing the story together in an appropriately big and dramatic climax and a complex ending that encourages several re-readings (of at least the ending, if not the entire book). I recommend it highly.

*Understanding Comics, if anyone isn’t aware, is the preeminent work about the medium of comics, written in comics, and is very accessible and interesting to anyone whether or not they read comics. If by chance you haven’t read it, you really, really should. Here, I’ll make it easy to get started:

I went to see David Greig’s play Dunsinane, a production of the National Theatre of Scotland and Royal Shakespeare Company, playing at Shakespeare Theater Co. through 2/21 — More info here. I thought it was quite brilliant. It starts more or less where Macbeth ends, with Siward attempting to stabilize the country whose monarch he’s just unseated. It quickly asserts a more accurate version of the history than Shakespeare’s – Lady Macbeth is still alive, is known by her actual name, Gruach, and has a living son, Lulach. Macbeth has ruled for 17 years (relatively peacefully by Gruach’s account). A finer point, and I’m not sure if this is historically supported, but by clan heredity she embodies the crown of Scotland, her husband(s) being king only by marriage. The story is basically told from the point of view of the English soldiers, who find themselves in hostile territory, trying to stabilize a country whose culture they don’t understand — a deliberate parallel to the Iraq and Afghanistan situation.

The play is powerful, the acting is superb, and the themes are satisfyingly complex. Highly recommended.

Here are my sketches from the performance, with the usual caveat about a dark theater, blind contour, unflattering likenesses, etc.

I’m on a panel with several of these folks on Sunday. It should be very cool.

The Folger Shakespeare Theater’s Mary Stuart just opened, and per my usual modus operandi, I went and did sketches. The house tends to be quite dark there, so most of these are “blind contour” drawings, with the bizarre proportions and overlaps that result from that.

The story is quite engaging, and the acting is excellent. The play has, as its title might suggest, a sympathetic view toward Mary Stuart, but also conveys the complex and dangerous situation in which Elizabeth I found herself with little choice but to treat Mary as an enemy. The sets and costumes are extremely well done, though I found the lack-of-color palette combined with a lack of action in the play made the performance a bit less interesting visually. Still, the personalities and various twists of the story kept me engaged, and I recommend the show to anyone who is (at least somewhat) interested in the Elizabethan period of history.

STC was kind enough to invite me to attend their magnificent production of The Tempest a second time. Sketches below!

Next up for STC are The Metromaniacs, a “rediscovered French comedy masterpiece” from 1738, translated/adapted by David Ives, and David Greig’s Dunsinane, a sequel to Macbeth, produced the National Theatre of Scotland and Royal Shakespeare Company.

Also the Folger is doing Mary Stuart, about the power struggle between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.

Tempest sketches part two (part one here) —

Prospero’s final monologue is especially powerful in this production. Here it is in its entirety:

On Friday I went to see Shakespeare Theatre Company’s The Tempest. This is a really GREAT production of one of my favorite plays, directed by Ethan McSweeny. It’s the best Shakespeare play I’ve seen so far in DC, and one of the most lavish Shakespeare productions I’ve seen, period. It’s up ’til mid January and I HIGHLY recommend it. More details and sketches below, though you might want to stop reading now to avoid spoilers.

Incidentally (and in the interest of full disclosure), I am doing a workshop with STC about adapting Shakespeare to comics  on Dec 21st at 4:30pm.

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Those who aren’t on my mailing list may not have caught the fact that I’m currently working on a graphic novel adaptation of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. It seemed imperative, therefore, that I see Nightfall with Edgar Allen Poe by Molotov Theatre Group at DC Arts Center. It too is an adaptation of several of Poe’s stories, performed in a small venue on an intimate scale, and both my wife and I enjoyed it very much. It leads off with The Raven, which is pretty good but probably the weakest of the pieces. The strongest is their rendition of The Tell-Tale Heart, which features some truly impressive makeup and brilliant choreography. Unfortunately I believe this run is now over, but perhaps it will be reprised at some point.

Here are a few sketches I did during the performance (some minor spoilers).

The playbill credits the following:

Elliot Kushner – Poe

Matthew Marcus – Edgar, Policeman 1

Adam Adkins – Roderick Usher, Policeman 2

Stacy Whittle – Madeline Usher

Yoni Gray – The Raven, Sante

Jen Bevan – Lenore, Old Man

Eric Coble as scriptwriter, Mark Kamie as Director, Gregory Martin as composer/sound designer, Jen Bevan as choreographer and costume designer, Pete Vargo on lighting, Brian McDEermott on set design, Production Stage Mgr Katherine Offutt, Alex Zavistovich Board President and Fights/Props/Effects, and Emily Gray as Run Crew / Props Mistress.

Excellent job, all!

For the third year I joined the excellent painting workshop held at the Dock gallery/restaurant in Islesford, on Little Cranberry Island, off the coast of Mt. Desert Island in Maine. Henry Isaacs and Ashley Bryan do a wonderful job with this every year, the restaurant feeds us like kings, locals let us stay in their beautiful homes, and it’s always a great group of folks to paint and socialize with.

Here’s  recap of 2012 and 2013.

The workshop started off with the traditional day of fog, then turned sunny and beautiful for the rest of the time. I worked almost exclusively in gouache. Most of these are painted on 5×7″ watercolor postcards.

Quick painting of some lovely flowers we got at the Takoma Park farmer’s market.

Just got back from a great week in Colorado. I was a guest of the Denver Comic Con, which has grown HUGE in just a few years. I was on a couple of excellent panels, met cool people, spent some time tabling and sketching, and then took off for the mountains of Estes Park, where I hung out with ground squirrels and elk 🙂