Kirby Studies

20 March 2012

Events

Talk and Signing @ Modern Myths!

Exciting news!

Modern Myths Comic Books and Games, a terrific shop and always one of the highlights of my annual to biannual visits to Northampton, Massachusetts, will be hosting the first-ever signing event for Hand of Fire!

That’s right: on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, the oh-so-fittingly named Modern Myths will be up to its ears in Kirbyana!

I’ll be discussing Hand of Fire—what the book is about, how it came to be, and what I hope it contributes to the study of comics—and then taking questions, chatting for a while, and signing and personalizing copies. In fiery red!

I’m really looking forward to this gig. It’s a distinct pleasure to do an event at one of New England’s finest comic shops and one of my favorite ports of call. Please come if you can (here’s how to get there), and let others know about it too. This should be a blast!

And check out the Facebook page that the Mythos has kindly created to announce the gig!

5 March 2012

3 Comments

Interviews

Interview at The Comics Reporter!

Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter has just interviewed me (Charles Hatfield) about Hand of Fire and Kirby! You can find the interview here.

Tom put so much work into this: not only his reading and questioning, which led me to think about some very interesting and important issues, but also the formatting, illustrations, and links. It’s wonderful to be featured on such an excellent newsblog.

I’m very grateful for the opportunity, and, again, for the thought-provoking questions!

13 February 2012

4 Comments

Responses

Responses are coming in

Benjamin Woo, a super-sharp scholar of comics and culture at Simon Fraser University, has posted a review of Hand of Fire to his site, BenjaminWoo.net. It’s very encouraging. Woo calls the book “smart and sharp and learned, but accessible to the interested layperson and shot through with genuine love for the material.” Nice to hear!

Also, Gary Picariello’s review for Yahoo! calls Hand of Fire “enjoyable and thoughtful reading” that “makes the reader think.” I particularly appreciate his description of the book as “critical thinking at its best.”

Meanwhile, Rob Steibel, over at his Kirby Dynamics blog, has nicely sounded the trumpets! Thank you, Rob.

Reader response has started to appear on amazon.com, of course, with the usual mixed results (heh). Nothing like contrasting doses of ego-boosting affirmation and skull-rattling provocation all at once!

10 January 2012

7 Comments

Updates