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Batman rides the lightning as original cover for The Dark Knight Returns Book One strikes Heritage Auctions in June
DALLAS, TX.- Batman was referred to as "The Dark Knight" in his very first solo comic book, 1940's Batman No. 1 in the last panel on Page 11, after The Joker, making his debut, kicks the unconscious hero off a bridge. Wrote his co-creator Bill Finger, "The shock of cold water quickly revives The Dark Knight." But it was writer-artist Frank Miller who made the nickname stick, who seized upon the appellation by which Batman is perhaps best known to generations of comic-book readers and moviegoers. And it began with the publication of his four-part epic The Dark Knight Returns, the brutal, gritty and darkly droll tale that hit shelves and spinner racks like a bolt of lightning in February 1986 and provided Batman (if not the entire comics industry) with what critic Elvis Mitchell calls "a savage rebirth." "What Dark Knight did to superhero comics and the superhero genre itself, it was a big, fat Dope Slap," Miller says. "It just slapped the genre awake." Miller and collaborator Lynn Varley's or ... More

Mantle and Munson records and a Michael Jordan jersey from his last blast with the Bulls lead Heritage auction
DALLAS, TX.- During a weekend filled with some thrilling Game 7s, it was the sporting world's most famous No. 7 who stole the spotlight during Heritage Auctions' $20.2-million May 12-14 Sports Catalog Auction. Not only did Mickey Mantle's 1951 Bowman rookie card, graded PSA NM-MT 8, lead the nearly sold-out event by realizing $468,000, but an SGC 6.5 example of his iconic 1952 Topps card sold for $228,000. That shattered the previous record for the grade set only six months ago. And another Yankee great also saw a new record realized for his beloved 1971 Topps offering: Thurman Munson, whose PSA 9 example of the coveted cardboard one of just four graded that high, with none better sold for a breathtaking $199,999. That, too, toppled the previous record of $162,000 set last year. "The Heritage Sports team is proud to have another thrilling catalog auction in the books with multiple world records set," says Chris Ivy, Heritage's Director o ... More

Pearl Lam Galleries announces representation of Philip Colbert, known as the "godson of Andy Warhol"
LONDON.- Pearl Lam Galleries announced the representation of British artist Philip Colbert. A selection of paintings by Colbert will be presented by the gallery during Art Basel Hong Kong. Pearl Lam Galleries Shanghai will also host a large solo exhibition of new works by the artist later this year. Philip Colberts practice establishes a dialogue between contemporary mass culture and an art historical canon through the lens of his iconic lobster persona. His hyper-pop aesthetic intertwines everyday and digital symbolism with painterly compositions and contemporary art theory. Colbert works across disciplines, including painting, sculpture, furniture, design, and digital art, with the lobster iconography acting as a central protagonist. Colbert follows the works of the early, formative pop-art artists, including Richard Hamilton, Roy ... More

Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, master of the santoor, dies at 84
NEW YORK, NY.- Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, an Indian musician and composer who was the foremost exponent of the santoor, a 100-string instrument similar to the hammered dulcimer, died Tuesday at his home in Mumbai. He was 84. Indian news reports said the cause was cardiac arrest. Over a career spanning nearly seven decades, Sharma became the first musician to propel the santoor onto the world stage, at concerts and recitals in India and elsewhere. Before Sharma started playing the santoor, it was little known outside Kashmir. Even there it was used only to play Sufiana Mausiqi, a genre of Kashmiri classical music with Persian, Central Asian and Indian roots. The santoor, a trapezoidal wooden instrument whose strings stretch over 25 wooden bridges, is played with slim wooden mallets. ... More

After 36 years, a Malcolm X opera sings to the future
DETROIT, MICH.- When a man is lost, sings Betty Shabazz, Malcolm Xs wife, does the sky bleed for him, or does the sunset ignore his tears? The start of a smoldering aria, these words may be the most poetic and poignant in Anthony Davis opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X. Especially poignant because, for several decades, X, too, has been ignored. The work, with a libretto by Thulani Davis, the composers cousin, from a story by his brother, Christopher Davis, premiered in the mid-1980s, first in Philadelphia and, officially, at New York City Opera. And then largely silence. For the past 36 years, it has been more talked about than heard. (An excellent studio recording from 1992 is now out of print.) And it was obvious, at the opening of a new production Saturday at the Detroit Opera House, what X ... More

Katsumoto Saotome, who preserved memories of Tokyo firebombing, dies at 90
TOKYO.- Katsumoto Saotome, a novelist who lived through the brutal American firebombing of Tokyo during World War II and worked relentlessly to preserve the memories of survivors in published accounts and at a museum he founded, died Tuesday in Saitama, Japan, a suburb of Tokyo. He was 90. His daughter, Ai Saotome, confirmed the death. She said he had been hospitalized with pneumonia last fall. Saotome (pronounced SAH-oh-toe-meh) spent more than half a century amassing the stories of survivors, some of whom were initially reluctant to share their recollections. Plunging into the complicated politics of war remembrance, he pushed the Japanese government without much success to memorialize the estimated 100,000 people who were killed in the attack, which is far overshadowed by the nuclear ... More

'Mrs. Doubtfire' to close on Broadway, after reopening
NEW YORK, NY.- Mrs. Doubtfire, the Broadway musical adapted from the popular 1993 film, announced that it will close this month after a bumpy run that was interrupted by the pandemic closure in March 2020 and included a return amid the tumultuous current Broadway season. The shows producer said late Thursday that the musicals final performance, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, would be May 29, just over a month after it reopened after a three-month hiatus. The news comes days after the shows star, Rob McClure, scored a Tony nomination for his comedic and chameleonic performance in the title role, but the musical failed to garner nominations in any other category. The closing reflects the challenges of this Broadway season the first since the pandemic shutdown when tourism remains down, coronavirus ... More

Larry Woiwode, who wrote of family, faith and rural life, dies at 80
NEW YORK, NY.- Larry Woiwode, the author of lyrical, expansive novels, short stories, poems and essays, mostly planted in the American West, that explored the power of place, family ties and faith, spiritual and otherwise, died April 28 in Bismarck, North Dakota. He was 80. His son, Joseph, confirmed the death, in a hospital, but did not specify a cause. Woiwodes 1975 novel, Beyond the Bedroom Wall, a 600-page saga about four generations of a North Dakota farming clan, established his place in American letters. For its epic sweep, elegant language and essential themes, he was compared to Charles Dickens, Herman Melville and Leo Tolstoy. Novelist John Gardner, writing in The New York Times, called it a brilliant solution to the aesthetic problems raised by the modernist authors who were then upending traditional ... More

Beyond the châteaux: New escapes in France's Loire Valley
NEW YORK, NY.- On my last pre-pandemic trip to the Loire Valley, in 2018, I found myself in a familiar place. Ten years after my first road trip on the regions castle route, I was back at the 500-year-old ChÃ¢teau de Chambord, joining a small group of European and American tourists on a guided tour. Within seconds of convening in the inner courtyard, we were craning our necks to marvel at the structures ornamental bell towers as our guide rattled off facts and dates about King Francis I and his former hunting lodge. When she ushered us up to the towers, chiding us for not listening, a feeling of deja vu washed over me. This was my third visit to the Loire Valley from my home in Paris, and the whole fairy tale experience felt tired. Little beyond a nearby converted hotel had changed. Not the exasperated guide going through the motions, ... More

Let actors act
NEW YORK, NY.- Adrian Lester, a British actor from Birmingham and the son of two immigrants from Jamaica, was nominated last week for a Tony Award for his performance in The Lehman Trilogy as Emanuel Lehman, one of the German-born Jewish founders of fallen investment behemoth Lehman Brothers. Lester, like the other actors in the three-man play, takes on several parts, including female characters and, at one point, a thumb-sucking toddler. There has been no outcry about a British actor of African descent playing a German Jew nor was there any fuss when he played Bobby, a character traditionally performed by white actors, in a London production of Stephen Sondheims Company, for which he won an Olivier. And why should there have been? Its called acting. There was no protest either about Lesters co-star Simon ... More

'Hamlet' boldly engulfs the Metropolitan Opera
NEW YORK, NY.- An opera composer would need the epic gifts and epic gall of a Richard Wagner to consider an adaptation of Hamlet and think: Yup, Ive got this. My initial response, Brett Dean has ventured more modestly, was to say no, that I couldnt possibly tackle something that big. But about 10 years ago, Dean put aside his reservations and began to tackle the play, with Matthew Jocelyn by his side as librettist. And, boldly slashing and reconfiguring Shakespeares text while setting it to a score assured in both crashes and whispers, they tackled it to the ground. Now at the Metropolitan Opera, Dean and Jocelyns Hamlet is brooding, moving and riveting. These two artists have put a softly steaming small choir in the orchestra pit, and musicians in balcony boxes for fractured fanfares. And, through acoustic means ... More