chris offutt on comix

http://www.uiowa.edu/~ournews/2006/april/041106offutt-comics.html

University of Iowa News Release
April 11, 2006
Chris Offutt Discusses Comics In April 21 Writers' Workshop Lecture
Chris Offutt, a University of Iowa Writers' Workshop alumnus and visiting faculty member, will discuss "Comic Books Come of Age" at 4 p.m. Friday, April 21, in Room 150S of the Seamans Center on the UI campus.
The lecture, a part of the workshop's new Writers' Workshop Lecture Series, is free and the public is invited to attend.
Offutt, a Lannan and Whiting Award winner and a Guggenheim fellow, made his comic-writing debut last year in "Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, No. 6" and he wrote an essay, "Why I Love Comics," for "RoadStrips: A Graphic Journey Across America." Another comics essay appeared in "Give our Regards to the Atomsmashers," and DC comics has asked him to write for "Batman."
"People who write and draw their own comic books have more creative freedom than any other artist," Offutt says. "They have independent control over both text and image, which function equally together. Every other artist either collaborates or deploys language separate from imagery."
Offutt's books are the short-story collections "Out of the Woods" and "Kentucky Straight," the novel "The Good Brother," and the memoirs "The Same River Twice" and "No Heroes."
The Writers' Workshop is a graduate program of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. You may visit their Web page at www.uiowa.edu/~iww/.
For UI arts information and calendar updates, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/artsiowa. To receive UI arts news by e-mail, ur-acr@uiowa.edu.
STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Arts Center Relations, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 351, Iowa City, IA 52242-2500.

Hope this doesn't mean he's not writing any more fiction...we've already lost denis johnson (claims he's not going to write anything but plays from now on)...not that I'm not excited at the prospect of Offutt meets BATMAN.