The San Diego Union-Tribune
This was my first ever internship at my hometown paper I had grown up reading! I primarily contributed to their arts and culture coverage and tackled some additional tasks such as helping manage the guides team’s Facebook presence and fact checking for their annual almanac of the county.
Articles
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Published on July 20, 2023 at 10:47 PM PDT
When people hear Comic-Con, the immediate association is typically superheroes, video games and people clad in elaborate costumes.
It might be surprising to learn that, since 2018, the convention has held a panel dedicated to Holocaust remembrance. To South Bay resident Sandra Scheller, it has always been a perfect fit.
Scheller, daughter of Holocaust survivors Ruth and Kurt Sax, has been organizing the panel since its inception. Each year it focuses on a different lesson to learn from the tragedy, with a mission of reaching younger generations at Comic-Con.
“It is the most incredible platform for education,” Scheller said.
Thursday at Comic-Con, the Art from the Holocaust panel focused on tattoos. Speakers included Scheller, Karin Babbitt (daughter of Dina Babbitt, portrait artist at Auschwitz), Edmundo Godinez (a local graphic artist working with Scheller and Midler) and Ben Midler,a 95-year-old survivor of various concentration camps.
“I didn’t speak about the Holocaust to nobody until my kids were 17 or 18 yearsold,” Midler said. “Now I’m going to speak to schools and universities and going anyplace that wants me to speak, no matter how far it is.”
While the panel presentation displayed some examples in popular culture of the tattoos that many prisoners in concentration camps were given — such as Magneto from X-Men — it emphasized the overall lack of representation of them in visual media. Panelists also pointed out some misrepresentations about such tattoos.
For this, Scheller turned to the panelist who lived through the experience. To make the case, she showed comic book imagery of a concentration camp prisoner getting tattooed, and made the point that less is understood by just looking at the photo. Instead, she turned to Midler, asking questions about whether his arm was prepped before getting his tattoo and whether the tattoo was given to him before or after his head was shaved.
All these details and more were taken into consideration for a new series of graphics being developed by local artist Edmundo Godinez. The images debuted at the panel.
The pieces show a close up of the tattoo stamp used on most prisoners, a graphic of young Midler being tattooed by a fellow prisoner and a striking comic strip explaining the impact of the camps on him. Godinez used interviews with Midler to determine what to portray.
“He would go almost two years without speaking to anyone,” Godinez learned of Midler’s time in the camps.
One of the graphics shows Midler grabbing a fistful of barbed wire, with his tattoo on display.
“This graphic represents a much more mature Ben,” Godinez explained. “We see him here… he’s confronting his past, nevertheless he’s here with us, speaking with us, and educating us on it.”
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Published on July 18, 2023 at 9:05 PM PDT
Millions of people have seen Stan Lee in his quirky background appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or know him as the co-creator of some of the most iconic characters in comic book history.
Now, at a new exhibit in the Comic-Con Museum, they can see a rarely portrayed side of him, the editor whose decisions and influence changed the landscape of comics.
“One of the things that makes him so unique is that the comic book industry never had a greater spokesperson,” lead curator Michael Uslan said.
“Excelsior! The Life and Legacy of Stan Lee,” opened Tuesday at the museum.
Known around the world by the pen name Stan Lee, Stanley Martin Lieber was a leading figure of Marvel Comics for decades and is credited for shepharding the creation of characters such as Spider-Man, Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men. He passed away Nov. 12, 2018.
To organize the extensive life and legacy of Lee into a single exhibit was no simple endeavor. The museum worked with Kartoon Studios, which controls Lee’s likeness and post-Marvel work. Uslan, an executive producer for movies like “Batman” and “The Lego Movie,” was a confidante and colleague of Lee, making his curation a more personal experience.
But his connection to the comic book legend goes back much further.
Uslan first met Lee on a trip to New York City when he an eager 11-year-old, searching for the Fantastic Four headquarters he had seen in the comics. Upon finding out it was not real, his mother climbed into a phone booth to call Marvel Comics.
To make up for the disappointment, Flo Steinberg, Stan Lee’s secretary, extended an invitation instead.
“Flo, took us by the hand, took us through Marvel and there we met Stan Lee and Jack Kirby who signed my comic book,” Uslan shared. “And that was it for me, Stan Lee was my idol.”
Uslan later began teaching the world’s first accredited college course on comic books at Indiana University, Lee called to congratulate him and ask how he could help.
Over time, Uslan said he and Lee worked together on Marvel animations, collaborations with DC Comics, and at the end of Lee’s life, he helped organize the funeral, which he said helped to shape his approach to curating the exhibit.
Also helping with curation were his son and the Comic-Con Museum team, along with Kartoon Studios. At the opening on Tuesday, fans of all ages eagerly entered the exhibit room to witness a collection ready to rival any major auction house.
On display were photographs, sketches and other artwork and comic books in the genres of western, mystery, and even horror.
Uslan advises fans to pay special attention to the display of the comic book “Tales to Astonish, No. 27,” saying that the issue is unique for introducing a superhero character within the mystery genre who ultimately became Ant Man. It was a milestone that guided Marvel to the beloved superhero-oriented studio of today.
Also at the museum, fans can see artwork from the DC and Marvel collaboration series, “Just Imagine Universe,” in which Lee introduced his version of a more ethnically diverse Justice League.
“Stan Lee was ahead of his time and very, very sensitive toward diversity and inclusion, always wanting to stay current and not to be considered retro,” Uslan said.
Though the exhibit focuses mostly on Lee’s remarkable accomplishments, there are also more complicated part of Lee’s legacy, including disputes over his creative contributions, as well as other lawsuits.
Uslan explained that the exhibit not only focuses on Lee but, “all of his co-creators that created the Marvel age of comics.”
“It wasn’t just a one person operation it was everybody pitching in and the results were historic,” Uslan said.
For those who venture to the museum, two other new exhibits to check out feature anime. The “My Hero Academia” installation has murals of the characters and a statue of an epic fight scene. There is also a gallery of artwork from the 25th anniversary of “Cowboy Bebop.”
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Published on August 11, 2023 at 7:42 PM PDT
City Heights residents and all San Diegans can soon see the classic musical “West Side Story” from an all-local cast of professional actors providing more than just song and dance. Audiences will get to see what it looks like to be a performing artist from their hometown.
“One of the reasons why Mexican families, Filipino families and BIPOC (Black, Indigineous, People of Color) families don’t culturally talk about theater or performing arts as a career option is because we don’t see ourselves on those stages,” said Teatro San Diego president and executive director Julio Catano said.
The musical will premiere Friday, Aug. 18 and run on certain dates through Aug. 27 at the City Heights Performance Annex. This production has been offered for free, which is possible through donations, grants fundraising efforts.
Tickets to see the show sold out within hours, according to Catano, but efforts are underway to acquire more seats to expand access to the production.
The story follows a spin on “Romeo and Juliet,” focusing on two protagonists, Maria and Tony, caught in between racial tensions of their warring communities: the Sharks, a Puerto Rican gang, and the Jets, a White gang. “West Side Story” first premiered in 1957, but remains relevant and has endured as both a culturally significant portrayal of Latino communities on stage and screen.
“We did this with the hopes of the younger population of City Heights, who maybe didn’t have the exposure, to be able to go see a show for free and inspire them to do this as a career as they see people from their own neighborhood doing it professionally,” Catano said.
Teatro San Diego, is a theater company that was created during the COVID-19 pandemic with the objective of highlighting inclusionary stories and diverse performers. The company chooses one musical each year in line with its mission.
“It’s just a story of love and compassion in a world of hate and war. It’s a masterpiece. And I think that’s what the audience will take out of watching the show,” said director Michelle Alves.
The production also has some personal connections to this story, including the recent Steven Spielberg-directed movie version of “West Side Story.” Catano, a performer with his own successful touring career, can be seen dancing in the background of the film.
And Alves has been performing it for 11 years. She spent two years on the National Broadway Tour as Anita, who is a sisterly figure to Maria, and the rest in original productions around the country.
This will be Alves’ directorial debut with the company. Alves and her assistant director Amanda Rivera Torres live in Puerto Rico, but have been brought to San Diego for the production.
“All these years I have been playing this character, it’s one of the few opportunities I have as a Puerto Rican woman to represent my people, my culture, in the most respectful way,” Alves said.Adding to the quality of the production is the story-accurate age of the cast.
“It really helps us believe they are high schoolers in gangs that are gonna dance off at the gym. Their youthfulness really brings a honesty to a lot of the scenes,” Catano said. “We have four high school kids who help round out the cast. But many of the cast are young. Many of them are fresh out of San Diego State.”
The two leads both are also young actors who grew up in San Diego. Mason Ballard, who plays Tony, studied at Ithaca College in New York and Ina Lelevier, Maria, is a Southwestern College theater student who is from Tijuana.
“When they deliver their scenes, there is not only such honesty with the way they deliver their Tony and Maria, but also a youthful innocence just from them being close to the age of the characters. It really brings that essence the story was written for,” Catano said.
While the production will be closely following the original story with Jerome Robbins recognizable choreography and dance fighting, some scenes will give a different take on certain parts of the story.
“Michelle, the director, is having the actors play it all around the audience. They will sing in the aisle where the audience is seated, they will sing behind them … It’s kind of a surround-sound experience,” Catano said.
