I will be appearing on an alumni career panel at my alma mater, the University of the Arts on Saturday, Oct. 22nd, telling students a bit about the world beyond college graduation. As if that weren’t enough, I will also be speaking at Villanova’s Falvey Library with Johnny Zito and Tony Trov on Wednesday, Oct. 26th about comics in the digital age. I will be addressing the educational possibilities the digital platform allows, citing Ulysses “Seen”, The Waste Land “Seen”, and Age of Bronze “Seen” as examples. Should be a good time.

When we thought about the possible applications for the Behind The Seen reader outside of Ulysses “Seen”, one of the first works that came to mind was Age Of Bronze, Eric Shanower’s beautifully drawn and meticulously researched comics adaptation of the story of the Trojan War. Shanower’s work draws from Homer’s Iliad, Shakespeare’s Trolius and Cressida, and other classics, which, along with the historical aspect, makes it ripe for a Throwaway Horse reader’s  guide treatment. We are absolutely honored to have the opportunity to work with Eric, colorist John Dallaire, and reader’s guide author Thomas Beasley to bring a full-color, fully annotated version of Age Of Bronze to the iPad. That goes double for me, as I was given the opportunity to design the graphic interface for the app.

Issue #1 is out now, with issue #2 to follow in November. Here’s Calvin Reid’s announcement in Publisher’s Weekly, and here’s a very nice review indeed from Stumptown Trade Review.

It’s bad form not to update one’s web site for long periods, but there are times when one is so consumed with other work that it becomes impossible. The past year has been extraordinarily full of very satisfying projects.

Reading with Robert Berry on Bloomsday

First, the glamorous stuff:

After the June, 2010 excitement over Apple’s reaction to the Ulysses “Seen” app, my Throwaway Horse partners and I found ourselves courting and being courted by publishers, and being invited to speak at events. I participated in a very enjoyable panel discussion at the Irish Arts Center in NYC with partners Robert Berry and Mike Barsanti last October, and in June of this year, Robert Berry and I joined a host of esteemed guests in reading aloud from the Calypso episode of Ulysses at The Rosenbach Museum and Library’s outdoor Bloomsday celebration. There was also a group interview for Shelf Unbound magazine thrown in for good measure.

On the work side of things:

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to work on some amazing projects. I’ve balanced a wonderful full-time graphic design job at Independence Blue Cross with the design of iPad app interfaces for Throwaway Horse’s releases of Martin Rowson’s The Waste Land “Seen”, Ulysses “Seen” 1.5, and the forthcoming Age of Bronze “Seen”; illustration, production art, hand-lettering, and graphic design on the Calypso episode of Ulysses “Seen”; a pitch of our Behind the Seen Reader to a major publisher; and various freelance graphic design jobs.

Things got busy from the get-go this year, as I was given the honor of working on the Independence Blue Cross annual report. In that process I learned a tremendous amount, forged relationships with some great people, and created what turned out to be a great piece.

The first of Throwaway Horse’s iPad releases for the year, Martin Rowson’s The Waste Land “Seen”, allowed me the opportunity to work with the great and brilliant British cartoonist, Martin Rowson (who also happens to be a very nice guy), and to establish a workable template for future iPad releases with our wonderful coding guys at Bunsen Tech. If you haven’t seen Rowson’s graphic novel parody of T.S. Eliot’s epic poem, I highly recommend it. It’s chock full of modernist art and literary references, both famous and obscure, and Mike Barsanti’s equally intelligent commentary makes this app a real gem (if we don’t say so, ourselves).

Immediately upon the release of The Waste Land “Seen”, Robert Berry and I set out to create 37 of the Calypso episode’s 54 pages in three weeks. It was a test of wills, but we did it. The comic and the reader’s guide, authored by Weidener University Joyce scholar Janine Utell, came together beautifully, and despite the grueling production schedule, we were quite happy with the end product.

We are currently in the process of putting together our forthcoming release of Age of Bronze “Seen”, which has given me the honor of working with the very talented Eric Shanower (also a very nice guy). Age of Bronze, Shanower’s incredibly well-researched, Eisner Award-winning comic adaptation of the story of the Trojan War, seemed like a perfect fit for our treatment, which adds scholarly commentary and discussion to comic adaptations of difficult works of literature. We’re very excited to unveil it this fall and will continue to work diligently to make that happen.

Still to come:

I will be participating in two discussion panels in October: one at Villanova University, dealing with comics in the digital age, and one at my alma mater, The University of the Arts, concerning post-graduation experiences as an arts professional.

Through all of this, work continues on the next episodes of Ulysses “Seen”, and an outdoor advertising campaign for Independence Blue Cross, as well. But enough for now. More about that later on…

I just put the finishing touches on the cover (shown here) of ALUMNI NOTES, the forthcoming novel by my father, Andrew S. Levitas, which will be released by Star Cloud Press in January of 2011. For obvious reasons, I had a lot of personal investment in this image, and I’m quite pleased with both the image itself and the reaction from all involved. I encourage everyone to read the novel when it comes out – and not because the author happens to have also created me. I was skeptical when I picked up the manuscript, and I quickly found that I couldn’t put it down. Everyone who has picked it up has said the same, so it seems that my father is on to something.

Also – look for an exciting announcement in the coming days concerning Throwaway Horse, LLC. and out project ULYSSES “SEEN”, which has recently garnered international attention. More to come!

The last month has been full of incredible new developments. We released an iPad app for ULYSSES “SEEN”, and when the press found out that Apple asked us to edit out some very minor nudity (no black boxes or figleaves), the story began to appear everywhere from The New Yorker to The New York Times to Time to Slate.com, and a whole host of others media outlets. We were given an interview and a 4-minute piece on NPR’s All Things Considered, and my Throwaway Horse, LLC partner, Robert Berry did a call-in interview for Irish radio. As if that weren’t enough, Rob’s comment was also one of Time Magazine’s quotes of the day. There have been even more exciting developments with the project and with Throwaway Horse, all of which will be announced in due time.

In addition, my father’s novel, ALUMNI NOTES will be published in January, 2011 by Star Cloud Press. I will have the honor of doing the cover, and I will post that image when it has been completed and approved.

Through all of this, I have been working as a contractor with the wonderful people in the Creative Services Department at Independence Blue Cross. I could not have wished for a better environment in which to work, and I am very grateful to have been invited back for a second run with them.

More to come…