Some New Pages To Share, Pt. 1: the birth of Gladys

We are delighted, after a long period of struggle, to be back on track with our graphic novel project. In this and future posts, we'll share new work with you.

Here is a self-contained one-page chapter that chronicles an important day in the history of the Carter Family. We hope you enjoy it. There will be more soon!

Click to enlarge and view in a new window...

Happy New Year, Folks! We're Back At Work...

It's been ages since our last post here. 2010 was a tough year for the DON'T FORGET THIS SONG project. After numerous attempts to negotiate with Peermusic for lyrics usage, we finally opted not to include significant quotes from the Carter Family's songs.

The history of A. P. Carter's songs is complex and tangled. Scholars and fans quibble over who exactly owns what (or who should own what). Ralph Peer's original copyrights of 1927-1941, some of which have been proven patently false, still hold, and there's nothing we can do about that, except to move on.

This was a tough call, and it required an extensive re-tooling of our script. But the book is fine without the lengthy lyrics quotes.

We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but the book is in production again. Once we've gotten a chunk of new work finished, we'll post some samples here. Thanks for not forgetting us--and we admit it has been a long, long time!

We're Still Alive and Kicking!

Hi folks,

Long time, no update. We've been bogged down in legal negotiations with Peermusic. The process of obtaining the rights to quote from Carter Family song lyrics has been a lengthy one, fraught with delays galore.

We've been revising the book, with some invaluable informational help from Rita Forrester and Flo Wolfe. I think our book will have some historical "scoops" that haven't appeared elsewhere!

The book is looking good, overall. Once we've cleared up all the legal roadblocks, and feel we can proceed without worry or question, we'll be back on track. The delays have been frustrating, but in that time, we've been able to make the project better and stronger than it was before.

We hope to have more updates here, as this project is once again among the living. Thanks for your patience and for your continued interest...

Benefit Concert in Hiltons, VA, Jan 3

A benefit concert for the Forrester Family will take place on January 3 at the Carter Family Fold. Click here for details. As you may have seen in the previous post, the Forresters lost everything in a tragic house fire almost two weeks ago.

Last February, Rita was interviewed for an oral history project by Southern Foodways. To learn more about the Carter Family's love of music (and good cooking), watch a video of the interview here. Look to the sidebar for related interviews on food and music.

Heart-breaking news of tragic fire at Carter family member's home

Our hearts go out to Rita Forrester, who lost her home and her husband Bob in a tragic home fire that struck on December 7th.

Rita has been a kind and generous voice of help and information as David and I have worked on Don't Forget This Song. We have recently been working with her on corrections to our manuscript.

She has offered many helpful insights and corrections to some long-standing misinformation about the Carter Family's story. We're thankful for the gift of her insight and knowledge. Our book would, literally, not be the same without her kind-spirited input.

For news of the fire, read THIS ARTICLE.

A relief fund has been set up for Mrs. Forrester and her family. Details about that can be found HERE.

An updated version of the news story, with a video, can be found HERE.

It is heartening to see all the people who have offered help for the Forrester family in these dark hours.

If you can help Rita and her family with a donation, there is information on where you can contribute.

We wish Rita all the love and support in the world during this tragic time.

our opening page in color

Hi folks...

Long time, no post. We're working away on our book. We got our deadline extended. This graphic novel is requiring a lot of time and energy! We want it to be as good as possible. We hope it will prove worth the wait.

Here is a colored (but dialogue-less) version of the opening page of the book. (We're awaiting the arrival of a custom-made computer font based on David's lettering style. Once we get that, and have it installed, we can begin to type in the final dialogue.)

I hope the lack of dialogue isn't disconcerting. We tried to suggest some of the coloring techniques of the very early newspaper comics. It appears to us that they were colored using water color washes, which were interpreted by the engravers for the four-color printing process.

Comics were printed in flat colors from the start--especially in small-town newspapers, whose engravers could not equal the masterful work of those in the employ of the Chicago Tribune or the New York World or Herald-Tribune.

We have tried to evoke this delicate yet complex early color process here. Our goal is not to imitate the old ways--just to suggest them, and to incorporate aspects of them into our 21st-century efforts.

We hope you enjoy this sneak preview. We're going to do our best to post here at least once a week from now on with more preview pages, art samples, photos, etc. We hope to see you here again very soon!

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge it...

Art in Progress

Here is the first panel of the chapter wherein AP Carter meets Sara Dougherty for the first time.