Enjoy these public programs in conjunction with Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero:
Teacher In-Service Workshop: From Comic Books to the Classroom
Friday, October 9, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Kids (and adults) love comic books… but comics in the classroom? What can they teach and how can we learn from them? Lisa Abia-Smith, director of education, Sharon Kaplan, museum educator, and Yifang Zhang, research assistant in the Center for Asia and Pacific Studies (CAPS) present multidisciplinary lesson plans and curriculum connections based on manga and comics. Sponsored by CAPS, the workshop for classroom teachers offers three professional development units. Pre-registration is required. Please contact Lauren Suveges at lsuveges@uoregon.eduor (541) 346-6410 to reserve a space.
Saturday Celebration
October 10, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Join us for a family-friendly free evening of art, food and fun celebrating the art of the Superhero! The evening includes exhibition tours and hands-on art making activities for all ages. Our November program features a manga demonstration, beginning at 5:30 pm, by artist Marianne Walker and a manga-making activity. Co-sponsor of the November program is Copic Markers Products/Imagination International, Inc.
Curator’s Gallery Talk
Wednesday, October 14, 5:30 p.m.
Explore the art of the superhero in Faster Than a Speeding Bullet with exhibition curator Ben Saunders, UO Associate Professor of English.
Understanding Superheroes Conference
October 23 - 24, 2009
This interdisciplinary symposium offers multifaceted insight into the genre of the superhero for novice and aficionado alike. Exhibition curator Ben Saunders has assembled an exceptional panel of experts and industry insiders, including keynote speakers Danny Fingeroth (author of Superheroes On The Couch and Disguised As Clark Kent) and Charles Hatfield (author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature). Guests panelists include Kurt Busiek (author of numerous Superhero titles for Marvel and DC and creator of the award-winning Astro City series), Greg Rucka (co-creator of Gotham Central, Whiteout, Queen & Country, and many projects for Marvel and DC), and Gail Simone (writer on Marvel’s Deadpool, DC’s Birds of Prey, co-creator of Welcome To Tranquility for Wildstorm, and current Wonder Woman scribe).
Understanding Superheroes is made possible by the generous support of the following institutions, UO departments, and programs: The Oregon Humanities Center; the College of Arts and Sciences; the Arts and Administration Program; The Department of Art History; The Comparative Literature Program; The Department of Creative Writing; The Center for the Study of Women in Society; The Department of English; The Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies; the Knight Library, Department of Special Collections; The Office of the Vice President For Research and Graduate Studies; and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
The Essence of the Superhero
Wednesday, October 28, 5:30 p.m.
"Heroes Ain't Superheroes: An Examination of the Essence of the Superhero Genre"
by Peter Coogan
The NBC television program Heroes is a superhero show, right? Wrong. While Heroes draws on the superhero genre, identifying this show in this way fundamentally misses the aspects of superheroes that distinguish them. Peter Coogan, director of the Institute for Comics Studies and co-founder and co-chair of the Comic Arts Conference, discusses the essence of the superhero and clears up the critical haze.
"Super-Aesthetics” by Douglas Wolk
Great superhero cartooning isn't quite the same as great cartooning, which in turn isn't quite the same as great visual art. Douglas Wolk, critic and author of Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, explains the peculiar Venn diagram of these three kinds of images, and outline what gives the best-looking superhero comics their visual meaning and power..
Writing Mature, Adult-Themed Superhero Comics
Wednesday, November 11, 5:30 p.m.
Marc Andreyko, comics and screenplay writer, leads a talk on his experience writing mature, adult-themed superhero comics. In 1994, Andreyko’s publication The Lost debuted and earned him a Harvey Award nomination. He has also partnered with P. Craig Russell, Jill Thompson, and Brian Michael Bendis. Andreyko continues to chronicle the adventures of Kate Spencer, a.k.a. Manhunter, in Batman: Streets of Gotham and is at work on new projects.
Saturday Celebration
November 14, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Join us for a family-friendly free evening of art, food and fun celebrating the art of the Superhero! The evening includes exhibition tours and hands-on art making activities for all ages. Our November program features a manga demonstration, beginning at 5:30 pm, by artist Marianne Walker and a manga-making activity. Co-sponsor of the November program is Copic Markers Products/Imagination International, Inc.
Comic Book Heaven: The Creative Process of a Guy who Lives on the Oregon Coast
Wednesday, November 18, 5:30 p.m.
Michael “Doc” Allred, comic writer and artist, has worked on virtually every major comic book icon, including, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and Sandman, but he is best known for his cultish creation Madman and his history of rock and roll told via the perspective of an alien clone known as Red Rocket 7. Allred has also created Marvel mutants with Peter Milligan on the X-Force and X-Statix series. He lives on a lake on the Oregon coast with wife and sometime colorist Laura Allred.
Gender & The Superhero
Wednesday, December 9, 5:30 p.m.
Author, activist and Wonder Woman expert Andy Mangels interviews Gail Simone about her career as the writer of superhero comics and animation. Simone first came to fan attention with her website Women in Refrigerators, listing the many instances in which female comic book characters were the victims of violent attacks because of their gender or whose attacks were used as a plot device for a male character. Best known for penning DC's Birds of Prey, Simone is the writer of Welcome to Tranquility and All-New Atom and, in 2007, became the ongoing writer of Wonder Woman. Portland, Oregon-based Andy Mangels is the author or co-author of over twenty books, including two best-sellers, and nearly one hundred comic books, including an award-winning anthology.
Schnitzer Cinema
All films begin at 5:30 p.m.
Richard Herskowitz, film curator, Houston Cinema Arts Society, and an adjunct faculty member in Arts and Administration, has unearthed three rarely screened but artistically exciting superhero films; each will be preceded by a classic Max Fleischer Superman cartoon and a surprise short subject.
October 7 Confessions of a Superhero
Confessions follows Chris Dennis, the ostensible son of actress Sandy Dennis, a Christopher Reeve lookalike (if you squint) and Hollywood Boulevard’s reigning Superman impersonator, along with his costumed colleagues Batman and Wonder Woman pretenders. We learn that Wonder Woman was a midwestern homecoming queen, Batman struggles with his anger, while Superman’s psyche is consumed by the Man of Steel. The film has been critically acclaimed since its premiere at South by Southwest and is richly suggestive in its exploration of contemporary American identity, popular culture, and fandom.
November 4 Danger: Diabolik
This neglected 1960s classic by Italian director Mario Bava may be the best superhero (actually, supervillain) film ever made. Its translation of comic book aesthetics to cinema, as comics artist Stephen Bissette has argued, has never been bettered. John Phillip Law plays the masked thief who steals and torments the Italian government, represented by the policeman Ginko (Michel Piccoli). The excellent score is by Ennio Morricone.
December 2 Mister Freedom
The great fashion and street photographer William Klein is also a film director of note and an American expatriate living in Paris. In 1969 he directed this brightly colored satire of American imperialism and international cluelessness. The self-important superhero Mr. Freedom, joining forces with femme fatale Marie-Madeleine (played by Delphine Seyrig), heads to France to rob, beat and kill representatives of the French Anti-Freedom (FAF) organization and anyone else who disagrees with him.The film, with its implicit critique of then-French President Charles de Gaulle and sympathy with radical students, got into some trouble with the French censors.