Michael Avolio

@michaelavolio.bsky.social

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Silver Spring, MD

Indie cartoonist making comics.
Autistic and in constant physical pain.
Former theater artist. Forever cinephile.

Buy my comics and paintings at michaelavolio.etsy.com. Support my comics work at patreon.com/michaelavolio.

Posts Replies Media

My comics, paintings, giclée art prints, original comic art pages, drawings, and blueberry pies are for sale at my Etsy shop, except for the pies, I've never actually made a pie before, though I really should sometime, given how much I love pie! michaelavolio.etsy.com

Someone said this Don Simpson comic was a "hit job." I'd never interacted with Simpson but had blocked him ages prior. Taking it for granted Simpson wouldn't see my comment, I said that I wasn't interested. He somehow saw my comment & sought out my email address to berate me.

Simpson didn't seem to know I was myself a cartoonist, which I think makes this even worse. From his POV, he's searching for the email address of a random comic book reader who wrote one sentence of disinterest in his comic so he could call that complete stranger an idiot, haha. Spiteful & pathetic.

Reposted by

Michael Avolio

Giclée art p̶r̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ prints of my paintings, original art, comics, and more! Follow this l̶o̶n̶k̶ link: michaelavolio.etsy.com

"Coronavirus infections are likely growing in 44 states and territories as of June 25, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Gift article, no paywall: wapo.st/45N8pxn

A covid summer uptick is underway as FLiRT and LB.1 variants ascendwapo.st Covid infections are growing in nearly all states -- with the sharpest increases in the West, according to CDC data. The FLiRT and LB.1 variants are most common.

Francis Ford Coppola got his friend Robert Towne to write the big scene between Vito and Michael for The Godfather. Marlon Brando didn't know who Towne was but was grateful for the scene:

Source (which quotes from The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay): www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/12/16/h...

How one crime novel became a film classicwww.eastbaytimes.com How one crime novel became a film classic

Reply to

Anna Holmes

Thanks - I don't know why I couldn't see it in the thread, but I can see it here.

Reply to

Anna Holmes

Hmm. I don't see the comment you're referring to.

Reply to

Anna Holmes

Harrison Ford had acted in one George Lucas film & two Coppola films by the time of Star Wars. Maybe that story is about how he got American Graffiti or something?

Shopworn is a solid showcase for early Barbara Stanwyck, who plays a character with some autobiographical elements, alternatively tough & vulnerable. Worth seeing for her work & for the harsh truths about the wealthy & powerful. My Letterboxd review: boxd.it/6NcKB1

Review of ‘Shopworn’ (1932) ★★★boxd.it Barbara Stanwyck brings a deep authenticity and strength to one of those roles that relates somewhat to her own difficult life and upbringing. In some ways, this feels like a trial run for the…

My copy of The Nancy Show arrived from @fantagraphics.bsky.social! This is the exhibition catalogue of the Ernie Bushmiller show currently running at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Several essays, ~70 pages of original art, & ~40 pages of scans of color Sunday pages from newspapers!

The exhibition runs until early November: cartoons.osu.edu/events/the-nancy-show-bushmiller-and-beyond/ The Nancy Show exhibition catalogue can be bought from any good comic shop or through Fantagraphics' site: fantagraphics.com/products/the-nancy-show-celebrating-the-art-of-ernie-bushmiller

The Nancy Show: Celebrating the Art of Ernie Bushmillerfantagraphics.com A companion catalogue of original art, memorabilia, and more from "The Nancy Show", a 2024 exhibition honoring Ernie Bushmiller at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. This book includes reprod...

Matt Zoller Seitz: "this one decision certified and even codified a Puritan-about-everything-but-violence tendency that had always existed in the United States and that was very briefly challenged for an approximately 15-year window late in the twentieth century." www.rogerebert.com/mzs/some-mat...

Some Material May Be Inappropriate: The PG-13 Rating at 40 | MZS | Roger Ebertwww.rogerebert.com How the PG-13 rating changed American cinema for the worse.

Twice Two is a hilarious 20-minute comedy short in which Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy play characters with their usual personas who have married each other's sisters, & the sisters are also played by the two. Fun premise & execution. My Letterboxd review: boxd.it/6MBt4Z

Review of ‘Twice Two’ (1933) ★★★★½boxd.it Twice Two is a hilarious comedy short in which Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play characters with their usual personas who have married each other's sisters, and the sisters are also played by the two…

Reply to

J. Michael Mull

One of my favorite comedies. Amazing cast, & a delightfully silly script.

Donald Trump made over 30,500 false or misleading statements during his presidency. If a family member or coworker lied to you on average more than twenty times every day for four years, would you trust them? www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/pol...

Analysis | Tracking all of President Trump’s false or misleading claimswww.washingtonpost.com The Washington Post’s ongoing database of President Trump’s false or misleading claims.

Wow! With this @scottmccloud.bsky.social & @goraina.bsky.social collaboration using the premise of a group of kids creating their own comics, The Cartoonists Club might drive a lot of the youngest generation into becoming cartoonists themselves. Exciting! www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel...

Scholastic’s Graphix Announces the Cartoonists Club by Bestselling Comics Legends Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloudwww.webwire.com Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, announced the publication of The Cartoonists Club — a one-of-a-kind graphic novel from #1 New York Times bestsellin...

Plague Journal page 68 from January 20, 2021. So many people died or got long-term illnesses from covid because Trump mismanaged the US response to the worldwide pandemic, spreading lies to make himself look better to his cultist followers.

The new Blu-ray of 1934's Black Moon has some color! Color tints & tones were prevalent during the silent film era, but I've never seen the technique used in a talkie. This piece discusses the topic: chicagofilmsociety.org/2013/09/03/the-true-story-of-tinted-talkies-an-interview-with-anthony-labbate

Screenshots courtesy of DVDBeaver: www.dvdbeaver.com/Film13/blu-r...

Black Moon Blu-ray - Jack Holt / Fay Wray www.dvdbeaver.com

& here's a classic @moviessilently.bsky.social blog post about the different ways silent films were colored back in the day: moviessilently.com/2015/10/24/s...

Silent Movies 101: Color before sound (and why colorization is not always a bad thing)moviessilently.com Welcome back to Silent Movies 101, where we examine aspects of the silent era in a beginner-friendly format. You can catch up on past posts here. To many people, black and white is synonymous with "ol...

My Letterboxd review of the 6-minute, experimental, nonlinear 1991 student film Here, based on the 6-page 1989 Richard McGuire comic later expanded into a graphic novel which is being adapted into the next Robert Zemeckis film starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright: boxd.it/6KxMzB

Review of ‘Here’ (1991) ★★★boxd.it A short student film based on a short experimental comic, in which we see a nonlinear jumble of brief snippets of numerous time periods without changing our viewpoint. We stay fixed looking at a…

Here by Richard McGuire was a short. 6-page comic published in 1989 in Raw magazine, the groundbreaking anthology edited by Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly. McGuire later expanded Here into a 2014 graphic novel. This is a 1991 short film based on the short comic version: youtu.be/57hR44mB5u0

Here (1991)youtu.be A short film about a series of events in time that happen in one point of space: the corner of a room in a normal house. Student-produced at the RIT Dept. of...

The frame including multiple time periods in smaller frames as you see in this short film is also present in the original comic.

The forthcoming Zemeckis feature film with Tom Hanks & Robin Wright is supposedly adapted from the graphic novel version of Here, though it looks like it may include a more conventional story, something the McGuire versions don't have. Zemeckis may just have used McGuire's concept as a springboard.

Excellent news. Hopefully these generative "A.I." companies will be sued until they stop creating this plagiarism software. www.reuters.com/technology/a...

Music labels sue AI companies Suno, Udio for US copyright infringementwww.reuters.com Major record labels Sony Music , Universal Music Group and Warner Records sued artificial intelligence companies Suno and Udio on Monday, accusing them of committing mass copyright infringement by using the labels' recordings to train music-generating AI systems.

Reposted by

Michael Avolio

Okay, so I'm going to post a thread now about using Clip Studio Paint, about color settings, ICC color profiles, outputting to CMYK, getting 100% K in your blacks, etc. Technical shit. If you're struggling with this, read the thread. I'll reply to myself here, and it'll take a little time... 1/many

Giclée art p̶r̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ prints of my paintings, original art, comics, and more! Follow this l̶o̶n̶k̶ link: michaelavolio.etsy.com

Reposted by

Michael Avolio

For The Comics Journal @comicsjournal.bsky.social, I wrote an in-depth investigation into Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and the curious case of who created Wolverine. Featuring interviews with many of the key players.

Logan’s Run: Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and the curious case of the Wolverine - The Comics Journalwww.tcj.com Who really did create Wolverine? And just as importantly, why should any of the rest of us care?