• Meanwhile, Will Dinski is serializing his new work-in-progress "Covered In Confusion" on his website. (And keep your eyes peeled in early 2010 for his Top Shelf debut Finger Prints.) Will's comics are amazing, as well a world class designer and one of the medium's foremost practitioners of exquisite hand-crafted comics and mini-comics.
• Comics historian Craig Yoe has launched a new site dedicated to his hella cool release Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster. I can't overstate how delicious this book is.
• Gareth Brookes from Appalling Nonsense recently gifted me a trio of stellar books: The Manly Boys Annual, a very creative, very witty and VERY British two-man anthology; The Banal Pig Landscape Anthology, a truly exquisite collection of comics; and J. Homersham's Musetopia, a series of delightful one-panel gags. Cheers!
• Well i finally read the new issue of World War 3 (#39), the wordless issue. It's a fat 120 pages in length and it is, as always, hard-hitting and superb. Dig that Drooker cover and order it here.
If it appears here, it has my absolute stamp of approval. And i do recommend at least checking this stuff out.
- Birds in the City: Exploring the Wildlife of Crissy Field. One of comics' finest naturalists Tammy Stellanova delivers another gorgeous comic. In an ideal world kids would be reading her comics in classrooms across the nation.
- Paper Cutter #10. Editor Greg Means of Tugboat Press continues his choice run of the best comics anthology running. This issue features new work by Damien Jay, Jesse Reklaw, and Minty Lewis.
- James Hindle continues to produce little mini-comic gems. His new Come Back might be his best work to date. Terrific chops and storytelling, and as always, a bittersweet and effecting story. I'm a BIG fan of his work, and you should be too! (Note, this image is not from said comic. I just pulled it off his site because it's pretty sweet.)
- Matinée, by the lovely Christine Norrie. This lush little mini combines two great things: Christine's beautiful artwork interpreting classic Hollywood films.
- The Girls' Guide to Rocking, published by Workman. Not comics. It is just what it says it is, with the subtitle, "How to Start a Band and Get Rolling to Rock Stardom." This baby rocks, chock full of useful information, from setting up a practice space, to song structure, to booking and promoting. Very very cool!
- Taddle Creek is an anthology of Toronto-based artists i picked up at TCAF. It's strong all around, but three pieces really rocked, by Michael (we can never see enough of his comics) Cho, J. Bone (set loose with an outstanding digitally-rendered wordless comic, and Fiona (i didn't even know she was still making comics) Smyth. A very very fine comic worth looking for. I'm not sure where it's available, but i'd wager it can be procured at Toronto's epic comics shop The Beguiling.
• And speaking of TCAF, here's a few snaps i took while i was in Toronto.
- Two great portraits by the aforementioned Michael Cho. I think these were originals, painted on a wooden sandwich board for Pages bookstore.
- Jeff Lemire starting his contribution to my Twin Peaks sketchbook. (This is the giant from Agent Dale Coopers dreams.)
- Here's Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire, comics cognoscenti, talking shop in Jeff's luxurious basement office.
<Alec: The Years Have Pants has left the building. It is en route to the printer as i type this, and fer f*cks sake, if there are only a small handful of must-have books of the year, this is one of them. Some of the most important, intelligent and human autobiographical fiction to ever see print. No less than 640 pages of comics goodness, all resting under sublime covers (softcover AND hardcover) designed by Eric Skillman.
If it appears here, it has my absolute stamp of approval. And i do recommend at least checking this stuff out.
- Re-read Rafael Navarro's brilliant Sonambulo: Sleep of the Just, since it came out eight years ago. It has aged exceptionally well. A luchador detective crime noir thriller. Oh, and the hero Sonambulo never sleeps, instead catching everyone else's dreams.
- Finally read Andi Watson's wonderful family story titled Little Star. (Oni Press.) Three years late, but worth the wait. Andi's evolution as a storyteller and as an artist over the years is incredible.
- Hey 4-Eyes #4. Robyn Chapman's fabulous zine about eye-glasses and the people who wear them. Tons of contributors, including the insanely talented Joseph Lambert.
(Art by Tom K.)
Eyes Move Rapid, by Michael Noonan (Top Shelf neighbor at TCAF). Trippy, cool, beautifully drawn mini-comic.
- Trubble Club III. The gang-bang of comics jams, this awesome mini proves wrong the rule that jam comics by nature suck butt. The art alone is worth the price of admission, but these short little ditties actually deliver.
- Jewish Memoir Goes Pow! Zap! Oy! [On Autobiographical Graphic Novels and Why They are so Jewy], by Miriam Libicki. I've been a real big fan of Miriam's drawn essays chronicling her time spent in the Israeli army, but this is a smart and entertaining departure. Originally made for and featured in The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches.
- Monkey Island. Self-published by Matt Rota. Good gods this guy can draw. Seriously, check out his site and feast your eyes.
If it appears here, it has my absolute stamp of approval. And i do recommend at least checking this stuff out.
Item #1. The Art of Harvey Kurtzman. By Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle. Published by Abrams. Editor Charlie Kochman. A stunning addition to the growing number of vital comics-creator monographs. Hats off to all involved.
Item #2. The work of Grant Reynolds. This guy rocks and keeps getting better. Watch for his Top Shelf debut, Comic Diorama, this Fall.
Item #3. Squink, dessin de dave mckean. A new book of mind-boggling drawings (NO digital manipulation!) published in conjunction with the always classy Allen Spiegle Fine Arts. No really, this is one of the most beautiful books i've seen in years. Get it while you can, McKean lovers.
Item #4. The work of Dan Archer. Center for Cartoon Studies student. Edgy political comics. Still a little rough around the edges, but great stuff that should be seen, especially in the socio-political blogospere. I expect big things.
• And now some nifty random ephemera.
- A preliminary drawing by Bwana Spoons, for the international tour he's doing to promote his new Top Shelf release, Welcome to Forest Island.
- Sneak peek at the cover for James Kochalka's Johnny Boo and the Mean Little Boy, and Christian Slade's third volume of Korgi.
- Some promotional art for Kevin Cannon's Far Arden, which will be used in conjunction with Things From Another World.
- And more from the pesky CCS (Center for Cartoon Studies) kids, given to me for giving them a sliver of our more-than-needed table space at TCAF a few weeks back. Thanks to Penina Gal, Josh Rosen, and Nick Patten.
• Yeesh, just went through the brand new Previews. Good gods, there's so much crap. Sigh... Oh well, easy on the ol' pocketbook, right? A few items do command attention, however, besides of course our own Alec: The Years Have Pants, Eddie Campbell's magnum opus in one giant edition.
Anyway, you could do worse than to pre-order the following books with your favorite local retailer:
- Page 107. The debut issue of Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth, with colors by Jose Villarrubia. (DC / Vertigo) It's Jeff Lemire... need i say more?
Page 182. Driven by Lemons, by Josh Cotter. (AdHouse Books) I've seen pages from this book, and it's fucking awesome.
Page 204. Masterpiece Comics, by the brilliant R. Sikoryak. (D & Q) The title is not hyperbole... it's really really amazing comics.
• Finally, we got a little shout out from Max Estes in Norway. Hi Max!
Portland is a river city; many of us lay our eyes daily upon the mighty Willamette and Columbia rivers. Yet, deep below the city’s surface runs another river, one that few have heard of and even fewer have seen. It’s a mysterious body of water that some say has the power to heal the sick, to make the old young again, to give the impotent a boner. It’s a magical place known as Zine River.
Another well-kept secret: the IPRC has a secret passageway to this amazing river of creativity. Our fearless Membership Coordinator Lori D has been down there for months, paddling the Zine River on a homemade raft, seeking out underground artists and zinesters to take part in this special benefit
art show. Join us for the opening reception on Friday June 26th at 7pm, and take your own wild ride down the Zine River.
Zine River
A Benefit Art Show for the Independent Publishing Resource Center
Grass Hut Gallery
811 East Burnside Portland, OR 97214
Opening Reception: Friday June 26, 2009 at 7-10pm
The show will be up in the gallery until June 29th and online until August 2nd.
Featuring artwork and zines by Chris Johanson, Thomas Campbell, Lori D, Nicole J. Georges, Gabriel Liston, Theo Ellsworth, Dan Gilsdorf, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, Megan Whitmarsh, Leif Goldberg, Keegan Wenkman, Scrappers, Sammy Harkham, Chris Duncan, Thom Lessner, Elizabeth Haidle and E*Rock.
Damn, if i was in New York next month i'd attend this fo sho!!
Join Mike Dawson (Ace-Face, Freddie & Me), Alex Robinson (Too Cool To Be Forgotten, Box Office Poison), and John Kerschbaum (Petey & Pussy, The Wiggly Reader) for casual comic-book conversation and Sunday brunch at Bergen Street Comics.
Blue Sky Muffins and Mimosas to be served. Child, pet, and Nerd friendly.
Sunday, July 12th
12pm - 3pm
Bergen Street Comics
470 Bergen Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718-230-5600
Here are some nifty sounding items of interest from my email in-box:
• Mike (Freddie & Me) Dawson and Alex (Too Cool) Robinson have started a new podcast called The Ink Panthers Show. "In each half-hour episode, Mike and Alex discuss the important issues of the day, including troublesome neighbors, Billy Joel, bike riding in Prospect Park, and news-radio."
Count ME in!
• Ink-stud Graham Annable has a bitchin' new store up online. So get on over to The Grickle Store, do your part to bolster the economy, and spend some dough!
• Jeremy Eaton continues to Wow, with his surreal cartoon jumbles. Check out his 10-page pencil-studies preview and be floored.... i mean, Charlie Brown Watcher?!!.. COME ON!
And these are just preliminary drawings for an upcoming show at L.A.'s Secret Headquarters' show of Jeremy's Cartoon Jumbles, which opens July 3. Secret Headquarters is located at 3817 W. Sunset Boulevard.
• Vertigo has released some sneak peek art for Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth at the new Vertigo blog, colored by our pal Jose Villarrubia. I saw some of the originals for this in Jeff's luxurious studio, and i can't wait to read it!!
• Finally, my old college professor and good friend Ken O'Connell sent along this information and call for submissions for the Superhero Comic Conference and exhibit at (my alma mater) University of Oregon. He and Ben Saunders in the Lit Department have been championing graphic novels for years now. I've seen lectures by Scott McCloud and art spiegleman down is fair Eugene, and you can bet your bottom dollar i'll be down for this event! Unfortunately, the deadline for submissions is in three days.
Full press release:
UNDERSTANDING SUPERHEROES: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
Location: The University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Dates: October 23-24, 2009
“Understanding Superheroes” is conceived as an interdisciplinary multi-media event, held in conjunction with a simultaneous exhibition of original comic art at the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
This exhibition, “Faster Than A Speeding Bullet,” will feature over 150 pages of original superhero comic art from the 1940s to the present, with examples of key works by many major creators in the industry, including Neal Adams, Mike Allred, C C Beck, Gene Colan, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Lou Fine, Ramona Fradon, Dave Gibbons, Don Heck, Carmine Infantino, J G Jones, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, Mort Meskin, Frank Miller, Joe Orlando, George Perez, H G Peter, Mac Raboy, John Romita Sr., Alex Ross, Marie Severin, Bill Sienkiewicz, Matt Wagner, and Berni Wrightson.
Keynote Speakers include Danny Fingeroth (author of Superheroes On The Couch and Disguised As Clark Kent) and Charles Hatfield (author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature).
Guests Panelists include Kurt Busiek (author of numerous Superhero titles for Marvel and DC, and creator of the award-winning Astro City series), Greg Rucka (co-creator of Gotham Central, White Out, Queen & Country, and many projects for Marvel and DC), and Gail Simone (writer on Marvel’s Deadpool, DC’s Birds of Prey, co-creator of Welcome To Tranquility for Wildstorm, and current Wonder Woman scribe)!
Other guests TBA.
We invite 1-2 page proposals for 20-30 minute conference papers considering the implications of superhero fantasies for our understanding of such diverse topics as gender identity, queerness, theological yearning, and nationalist politics. We also welcome appreciative discussions of superhero comics as significant aesthetic achievements — particularly insofar as those discussions contribute to the ongoing project within contemporary Comics Studies, to map the unique conventions of the comic art form. Above all, we are interested in sophisticated, lucidly written analyses that utilize the conceptual tools and hermeneutic lenses of contemporary literary and cultural theory.
It is our hope that this conference will help all participants, student and professional, skeptic and fan, to understand the extraordinary imaginative appeal of the costumed adventurer — an appeal that overlaps significant distinctions of age, gender, nation, and culture, and which no amount of silliness or cynicism seems quite able to dispel.
Please address queries and submit proposals via email to Ben Saunders, Associate Professor, Department of English by Monday, June 15th, 2009. (Email address: ben@uoregon.edu )
After nine grueling weeks of travel (and having a smashingly fun time, mind you), i'm back from a dizzyingly awesome trip to New York (in part for MoCCA) and in the commander's chair at Chez Brett, and buckling down to work. First up on the agenda is closing in on putting Eddie Campbell's sublime masterpiece Alec: The Years Have Pants to bed, and off to the printer. This massive tome will truly be one for the ages.
• Moving right along, let's turn back the clock to mid-April, and revisit my trip to Industry Day at the Center for Cartoon Studies. In addition to a brief Powerpoint presentation about myself and how i got into comics, the attending pros and myself went on to do a smattering of portfolio reviews. Sadly, it's not all so fresh in my fevered brain anymore, but i did want to mention some of the work that do recall, including that of Mo Oh, Nicholas Patten, Penina Gal, Jose-Luis Olivares, Josh Rosen, Brandon Elston, Steve Seck, and Keny Widjaja. (Oh man, that seems like a million years ago.)
Nick Patten
Penina Gal
Jose-Luis Olivares
I also came home with lots of killer mini-comics, including some by the folks i just mentioned, and some by former students of CCS. A few things rocked my world. The work of Jon Chad is pretty freaking amazing. His in-progress Bikeman will turn some heads if & when it's completed. (And issue #2 was snuck into my bag at MoCCA when i wasn't looking... THANKS, whomever that was!) Not content with straight linear narrative, Chad plays the formal card to terrific effect with the mini-comicsWhaletowne and Leo Geo Acquires Ancient Knowledge.
John Chad
Former student and White River Junction resident Joseph Lambert continues to impress, withI Will Bite You. Also a former student, Colleen Frakes' Tragic Relief won a Xeric Grant, and is worth your time. (I got her awesome book Woman King, too, but in mini-comic form only. I saw at MoCCA that it's out now as an a beautifully designed "real" book.) Chuck McBuck's bonus! was quite fun. I really enjoyed Melissa Mendes' Freddy Figures It Out and Jen Vaugn's My Lady.
Colleen Frakes
The class also made a super cool jam comic, patterned loosely on 50s-era horror comics, called Dark Tomb of Dread.
Much more to come, including a peek back at some loot picked up at Stumptown Comics Fest and TCAF, the Swedish scene and more... but for now, it's bed time.
03 June 2009
Leaving on the MoCCA trip for New York very early in the a.m. Staying once again at Gregory Benton's swank pad on the Upper West Side. Gregory and his lady Florence actually just returned from a trip to France... here are some beautiful drawings he made while there.
That is correct, the genius cartoonist and author of Top Shelf masterpiece editions Van Helsing's Night off and Lone Racer will be in conversation with Mark Newgarden, moderated by Mark Nevins. The topic — What is "Funny" Anyway? (Info below the fold.)
AND Mahler has a brand new book available from Top Shelf! It's titled SPAM, and is a collection of comics made from miscellaneous spam messages acquired in his email in-box. Amazing work as always. We've only got a limited number of these trick 2-color hardcovers in stock, so ya better get 'em while they're hot!
Rock star book-designer Jacob Covey recently wrote an appreciation of Mahler's work over at the Fantagraphics blog, Flog, which is worth your time.
Seriously people, if you haven't read his work before, now is the time to do so. In fact, if you order now and buy both Van Helsing's Night Off and Lone Racer, we'll shave $6 off the cover price for the pair. Just make a note that Brett said so on the Hey Bartender blog.
Oh, and i can't forget one of my favorite Mahler comics of all time, the epic boxing story "TNT" in Top Shelf Asks The Big Questions.
• From the Press Release...
THE AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM NEW YORK
PRESENTS: WEDNESDAY JUN 3, 6:30 PM
CONVERSATION:
WHAT IS "FUNNY," ANYWAY?
A Comics Conversation with Cartoonists Nicolas Mahler (Vienna) and Mark Newgarden (NYC). Moderated by Mark David Nevins.
VENUE
Austrian Cultural Forum NY, 11 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022 (between 5th and Madison avenues)
Over the last several years, comics and graphic novels have hit "the mainstream" -- not just in Hollywood (which currently has a fascination with superheroes) but among the intellectual set as well. University presses are publishing monographs on classic and avant-garde cartoonists; THE NEW YORK TIMES runs a long-form comics narrative in its weekly Magazine; and graphic novels have gained credibility on the college campus and in the hipster coffee shop.
The Austrian Cultural Forum is pleased to present an evening of conversation with two of comics' rising "alternative" cartoonists, Nicolas Mahler and Mark Newgarden. While the work of these two artists is visually quite different, they share a similar bizarre sense of humor, an ability to capture (and lampoon) the absurd nuances of daily life, and a comics style that often humorously captures what all of us think but don't dare say.
Join us for a lively and visually rich conversation with Nicolas and Mark, in which we will explore how comics work, the marketplaces for graphic humor, where these cartoonists get their ideas, and, yes, the answer to that eternal question, "What is 'Funny'?"
NICOLAS MAHLER was born in 1969 in Vienna, Austria, where he resides to this day. As unique as he is prolific, Mahler's distinct minimalist style appears in Austrian, German, and Swiss newspapers and magazines. Over the last 10 years he has written and illustrated over 30 books which have been published in various languages around the world. His primary publishers include L'Association (France), Top Shelf (U.S.), La Pasteque (Canada), Edition Moderne (Switzerland) , and Reprodukt (Germany). In 2006 and 2008 he won the "Max und Moritz Award" for best German-language comic. His comic series FLASCHKO has been adapted as a series of animated shorts, and his book KRATCHOVIL was turned into a puppet show by a Swiss troupe, and is currently touring Switzerland, Austria, and France.
MARK NEWGARDEN has worked as a concoctor of novelties (Garbage Pail Kids), graphic artist (from RAW magazine to THE NEW YORK TIMES), and writer for TV, film, and multimedia projects (from Microsoft to Cartoon Network), among various and sundry careers. His work has also graced such venues as the Smithsonian Institute, the Cooper-Hewitt, the Brooklyn Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the ICA in London. He is the author of CHEAP LAFFS, a picture history of novelty item from Abrams, and WE ALL DIE ALONE, a collection of his comics and humor from Fantagraphics Books. His first children's book BOW-WOW BUGS A BUG (with Megan Montague Cash) was released in June 2007 from Harcourt, won the Society of Illustrators Gold Prize for that year, and has spawned a series of 6 additional "Bow-Wow" titles . . . and counting!
MARK DAVID NEVINS is an aficionado of graphic narrative and comics from around the world, and he occasionally puts pen to paper to write about his passion for the unique art that marries words and pictures. Years ago he took his Ph.D. in Literature from Harvard, and he now lives in NYC, where he is a management consultant by day. He is the American Correspondent for the renowned Swiss comics periodical STRAPAZIN, and sits on Executive Committee of the International Comic Arts Conference (ICAF) as well as the Editorial Board of THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (IJOCA). In addition to essays and critical reviews, he has published several translations of comics from French and German. He has traveled, worked, and taught in more than 60 countries around the world.
Three cheers for intern Emi Lenox, who kick-started this blog after waaaaay too long. I will stand by my word and do recaps of my trips to Vermont and Sweden. Soon.
And make sure to check out our new running feature strip on Top Shelf 2.0, Bob & Ivan!
Bob & Ivan is the brain child of Philip Witte and John Littleboy. I asked Phil if he could give us some background on Bob & Ivan... read on.
"'Bob and Ivan' was conceived in a sleeping car of an Amtrak train heading to San Francisco from Santa Barbara on a rainy December evening. The concept of a regular guy struggling with his nasty parasitic twin emerged from Phil Witte’s subconscious, tweaked by a memory of a 'Ripley’s Believe or Not' illustration of a man, possibly from India, from whose stomach dangled vestigial arms and a torso. It was a grotesque image. Yet, the man was smiling. He seemed to be a man of good humor, not at all bothered by this mass of half-formed protoplasm spilling from his person.
"Later, while perusing a book about freaks, Phil saw a Victorian era photograph of a man and his parasitic twin, possibly the same couple that Ripley had chronicled. The accompanying text suggested that the man found his twin thing amusing, like a puppet. His clothes were neatly tailored to accommodate his twin. He even named the thing.
"A real parasitic twin, unlike conjoined twins, is not a sentient being. With a little stretch of the imagination, it could be. Phil did some preliminary sketches, got his young daughter’s approval, and filed Bob and Ivan away.
"Phil had a collection of cartoons that he started drawing at age eight. He sold his first cartoon when he was 13. Resting on this single laurel, Phil took the next 33 years off to pursue other interests, including kickball, high school, Princeton University, a year teaching English in Bangkok, freelance journalism, writing jokebooks, and getting his law degree from the University of Chicago, before returning to cartooning. He also collaborated as a writer of gags for syndicated cartoonists.
"For 'Bob and Ivan' to work, Phil needed an artist better than he. Enter John Littleboy. John has made his living as a professional artist since graduating from Stanford in the late 1970s. His paintings have been displayed in galleries from New York to Morocco. Phil and John became friends after Phil represented John successfully in a lawsuit involving one of his commissioned paintings.
"Phil gave John a basic sense of the characters, wrote the dialogue and made suggestions, but the images are the product of John’s imagination. 'John added a lot of artistic detail that I would not have even thought of,' Phil said. One practical problem was depicting two characters interacting when one is always directly below the other.
"Funny/creepy art is something John has perfected. His 'Bag of Bones' playing cards depict comically horrifying images, but nothing that would scare a child of normal sensibilities. Kids seem to like the look of 'Bob and Ivan.' But then, kids like freaky stuff.
"Bob is insecure and knows it. Ivan masks his insecurities in a show of braggadocio, would-be womanizing, and sarcasm. Of course, Bob and Ivan might actually be the same person.
"Emily is the attractive woman that Bob longs for. She’s blind, but probably has the situation figured out. Ivan resents her and wants Bob to himself. Their mother inexplicably favors Ivan over Bob.
"Life is complicated. Families are odd. 'Bob and Ivan' is, in that sense, normal."
07 May 2009
travelin' on... Staros is currently in England, to attend the Bristol Con, and to visit Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Meanwhile, i'm boarding a plane to Toronto in about seven hours.
There are many things to catch up on, and my apologies for the massive lapse on updating this blog. I want to talk more about my trips to The Center For Cartoon Studies and Sweden, upon my return. (Plus, assuredly, TCAF.)
Au revoir.
Meanwhile, feast your eyes on this sneak peak art by Jeffrey Brown for our forthcoming, slimmed-down Top Shelf Catalog 2009.
In case you've never met us, this is Chris Staros, Eddie Campbell, and little ol' me (Brett Warnock).
02 May 2009
edging into madness... in the busiest part of the year as i type these words. Every minute in my day is precious. Anyway, Sweden was more fun than i could have ever imagined. I will post more soon, as soon as i put out a couple fires (metaphorically speaking), before i leave for Toronto in a mere six days.
Meanwhile, i was negligent in posting about the new World War 3 release party in time (which was last night), but at least i can showcase this glorious cover by Eric Drooker, and encourage y'all to go and buy it!!
More to come...
22 April 2009
Center for Cartoon Studies... the gift that keeps on giving. Yet another student knocks my socks off with this terrific art by Laura Terry. From top going clockwise, that's Chris Duffy (Nickelodeon), Calista Brill (First Second), me, and Peggy Burns (Drawn & Quarterly).
Wow! Beautiful.
Oh, and here's a terrific pic from Jen Vaughn's photo set on Flickr. Calista, myself, and Chris.
• My pal Michael Martins informed me that another pal Denis Kitchen will be curating an art show called Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix, 1963 - 1990, from May 2 to July 12 at the Chazen Museum in Madison, WI. Opening reception and curator's conversation is Friday, May 1.
• Top Shelf 2.0 contributor John C. Ralston's strip "The Hole In The Wall" is now available in print!!
• Scott Allie's son Sid and my son Carter on a tear at Stumptown this last weekend. Yee haw!
Also at Stumptown Craig Thompson took this snapshot of our terrific new intern Emi and Jeff (Bone) Smith.
• Now, off to Sweden with Chris Staros and Jeffrey Brown.
15 April 2009
Stumptown is upon us! Mere days away, in fact. Whoo hoo! On Friday April 17 2009, the Stumptown Comics Foundation is proud to present a chance-of-a-lifetime fundraising dinner event... Guests include: Jeff Smith, Craig Thompson, Farel Dalrymple, Matt Wagner, Gail Simone, Brian Michael Bendis, Derek Kirk Kim and Mike Dringenberg. Learn more at the Stumptown website.
PLUS, the CBLDF is holding an ebay auction for the seat to the immediate right of Jeff, Matt, Bendis, and Craig.
• Steve (Bughouse) Lafler writes about what can only be described as one hell of a magical night... now i know FOR SURE i'm heading down to Oaxaca later on this year!
Head spinning... Just home two nights ago from Vermont, and a trip to The Center for Cartoon Studies. I think there's something in the water there, because this was one of the most fun trips i've had in years, and y'know, i think i'm truly the luckiest guy in the world. Unburdened with the task of selling comics, it was a pleasure to swim in comics on an academic level with a posse of very enthusiastic students.
Hanging out with fellow guests Chris Duffy (and family) and Peggy Burns and Tom Devlin (and kids), and faculty member Jason Lutes (and his daughter), and meeting Calista Brill (from First Second), and meeting none other than Stephen Bissette (who inaugurated my new Twin Peaks sketchbook), and Super duper big thanks to James, Michelle, Robyn, Stephen and Alec. And all the students and staff. Oh, and small-town stragglers like Joe and Cat. And thanks to Jen for the link to her flicker set.
Here we are checking out the original art collection of virtual unknown master cartoonist and illustrator Denys Wortman. This is a wonderful story unto itself, as told by James Sturm. I do believe that in addition to curating this art show, that CCS will be editing an art book of Wortman's exquisite drawings.
White River Junction was beautiful. Gorgeous countryside.
Here's some photos of a group of us trekking up to James Sturm's house for dinner. (Including my bearded pal Alec Longstreth.) The weather was just right. Brisk.
I will be reviewing a handful of the books i was given by faculty and students as soon as they arrive, and i find time to read them.
• And what seems like a year ago, but was just last weekend, Emerald City now recedes in the rearview mirror. Another fine show. Well done, Jim. (Demonakos, of course.) Thanks to Carlos and Emi for help at the table.
This little iPhone set is from the Dark Horse karaoke party, where Kaz Strzepek & Derek Kirk Kim were intermittently sleeping at the bar, wrestling on the floor, or playing with the fire extinguisher. Jacquelene Cohen was drinking whisky like nobody's business, and got my co-pilot for the weekend, Matt Kindt, more hammered than he's ever been. It was awesome! Witness Matt's stunning rendition of some Bond themesong i can't recall by name.
• Meanwhile, Stripburger #48 is now available... a fine anthology of international comics, originating in Slovenia. These Stripburger cats are doing the comics world such an enormous service... worth checking out. Order right here at Top Shelf.
• Leonard Wong (who runs the Vancouver Comicon) recently put out another issue of Comix and Stories, an anthology of cartoonists from Vancouver, BC. There's some fins stuff in here... my favorites include "Papa's African Adventure," by Don King, "Mario's Lament," by Josue Menjivar, "Diary of a Bread Delivery Guy," by David Lasky, and "Belated" (an appreciation of Kate Worley, author of Omaha the Cat Dancer), by James Lloyd. The comic also sports a beautuful cover by Ron Turner.
13 April 2009
Head spinning... Just home two nights ago from Vermont, and a trip to The Center for Cartoon Studies. I think there's something in the water there, because this was one of the most fun trips i've had in years, and y'know, i think i'm truly the luckiest guy in the world. Unburdened with the task of selling comics, it was a pleasure to swim in comics on an academic level with a posse of very enthusiastic students.
Hanging out with Chris Duffy (and family) and Peggy Burns and Tom Devlin (and kids), and faculty member Jason Lutes (and his daughter), and meeting Calista Brill (from First Second), and meeting none other than Stephen Bissette (who inaugurated my new Twin Peaks sketchbook), and Super duper big thanks to James, Michelle, Robyn, Stephen and Alec. And all the students and staff. Oh, and small-town stragglers like Joe and Cat. And thanks to Jen for the link to her flicker set.
Here we are checking out the original art collection of virtual unknown master cartoonist and illustrator Denys Wortman. This is a wonderful story unto itself, as told by James Sturm. I do believe that in addition to curating this art show, that CCS will be editing an art book of Wortman's exquisite drawings.
White River Junction was beautiful. Gorgeous countryside.
Here's some photos of a group of us trekking up to James house for dinner. (Including my bearded pal Alec Longstreth.) The weather was just right. Brisk.
I will be reviewing a handful of the books i was given by faculty and students as soon as they arrive, and i find time to read them.
• And what seems like a year ago, but was just last weekend, Emerald City now recedes in the rearview mirror. Another fine show. Well done, Jim. (Demonakos, of course.)
• Meanwhile, Stripburger #48 is now available... a fine anthology of international comics, originating in Slovenia. These Stripburger cats are doing the comics world such an enormous service... worth checking out. Order right here at Top Shelf.
stripburger-blog.blogspot.com/
• Leonard Wong (who runs the Vancouver Comicon) recently put out another issue of Comix and Stories, an anthology of cartoonists from Vancouver, BC. There's some fins stuff in here... my favorites include Papa's African Adventure, by Don King, Mario's Lament, by Josue Menjivar, Diary of a Bread Delivery Guy, by David Lasky, and Belated (an appreciation of Kate Worley, author of Omaha the Cat Dancer), by James Lloyd. The comics also sports a beautuful cover by Ron Turner.
Anyway, this weekend in Seattle, James Kochalka will be on hand, singing copies of his new Johnny Boo: Twinkle Power. He'll also be bringing painting and CDs, as well as his son Eli's crazy minicomics.
Nate Powell is coming too, and will have his mini-comic Cakewalk, as well as his collection of older work called Sounds of Your Name on hand. Plus music and posters. (Oh, and of course, his L.A. Times Book Award-nominated Swallow Me Whole.)
Matt Kindt rounds out the party, with lots of fun stuff for sale, including original art, cyanide capsules and secret-code puzzles.
• Partied hard last night with Sarah-Grace McCandless and Jamie Rich. (Thanks for the cocktails, Sarah-Grace!) Jamire and i were talking about film noir, of course, and he told me about these two bitchin' pieces of art, commissioned by Ian Shaughnessy (writer of Shenanigans and co-writer of Strangetown for Oni) for a Billy Wilder sketchbook. Here they are.
• Here is a stunning piece or work by Aaron Renier, for a recent issue of Portland's Willamette Week weekly newspaper. (About legislation to ban exotic pets.)
• Christine Foye sent me this terrific link to an Onion article.... ha! "So say we all, Barack!"
• This just in... Jeffrey Brown's cover for Sulk volume 3: The Kind of Strength That Comes From Madness.
Sulk (Vol 3): The Kind of Strength That Comes From Madness explores the world of fantasy and science fiction, and turns it on its head. Or rather, just kind of tilts it slightly to the side. Stories include "Being Awesome Is Its Own Reward," where two brothers deal with a giant monster rampaging through their city, and "Mighty Malcum," in which an 11 year old genius and his robot best friend attempt to adjust to college life. There's also stories of pirates, time travelling babies, martial arts masterminds and an all new short story from Elfworld.
Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Box Brown has a new Xeric-award winning 96-page book of comics listed in Diamond Previews, called Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing. As you may or may not know, with Diamond's new listings policies in place, he needs to sell a boatload of copies of this baby, in order to get the book distributed.
Learn more about the book at Box Brown, and if you like what you see, make sure to pre-order a copy from your local retailer, and spread the word, baby!
• Andy (Fox Bunny Funny) Hartzell is with Telltale Games working as a designer, and his first effort as "writer/director" is about to go live. Wallace & Gromit in "Fright of the Bumblebees" is now available for PC download, then on XBox Live Arcade in a couple weeks. It's the first of a series of four games, to be released monthly (he's lead designer on the first and fourth).
Trailers, images and downloadable demo can all be found at Telltale Games.
• Paul Hornschemeier is touring, and he's coming to Portland!
• Yet another Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Chris "Elio" Eliopoulos presents Balanced Breakfast, with music by Michael Deforge.
• Here's a nifty site, Comicon Road Trip, promoting the upcoming Emerald City Con in Seattle, a mere two weeks away. Make sure to double-click on the comics pages to check out the video links... fun stuff! Thanks to Evan Long for the heads-up.
• Matt Kindt scanned the bitchin' spread he had featured in the last-ever issue of Comic Foundry.
• Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, but i'm an "editor" of our comics section, Top Shelf 2.0, in name only. Leigh Walton is The Man. His work recently received some well-deserved props over at 4th Letter.
• Ha! Thanks to Jim Valentino for linking me to The Saturday Watchmen (cartoon) intro! Awesome.
• Max Estes keeps cranking out bitchin' paintings. Available for sale at Made by Max.
And don't forget, Max has two terrific graphic novels available for purchase right here at Top Shelf, Hello, Again and Coffee & Donuts.
• Oh, and the pundits can suck it — i LOVED Watchmen. Can't wait to see it again on a high-def screen.
• Forget Batman... Comic Foundry R.I.P.!!! Last issue was a beauty. With Wizard magazine firing staffers right and left, it seems like that mag is on its last legs. And while i've been an unabashed fan of it since Jemas & Quesada reinvented Marvel Comics, the magazine has really lost its magic — none of which has to do with changing content within the industry itself. By the same token, while i still lovingly read The Comics Journal every issue, i only really devour a fraction of the content, whereas in it's heyday i read every single word within its pages.
Tim and Laura... thanks for a wonderful, if all too brief a ride. I'll really miss ya!
• Finally, a seriously big tip o' the hat to Amid (Cartoon Brew) Amidi, who penned the recently released The Art of Pixar Short Films. I'm a big fan of the "art-of" (fill in Pixar film) books, and indeed the only one i don't own is Art of Cars. (Loved the movie, but i'm not a big auto guy at all.) The series as a whole stands head and shoulders above the competition. Qualitative comparisons between Pixar films and the competition aside, the Pixar art-of books are luscious affairs that dig deep into the Pixar archives to provide a rich understanding of the idea-generating visual process behind their movies. But for all their glory, none of the art-of Pixar books to date have taken us behind the creative process, and deeper into the history of the company, the men and women who made the company the juggernaut it is today.
That has changed with Mr. Amidi's terrific The Art of Pixar Short Films. A lovingly packaged and in-depth look at not only the films themselves, but also a de-facto history of Pixar, and their critical importance in the development of digital animation in general. From their early day-jobs at Lucasfilms, this is the story of a handful of crafty idea-smiths (including widely known John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, father of comics' own Ben Catmull), who changed the face of animation.
In the front of the book, Amidi delves into the teams behind each short film, which provides wonderful context into the development of the company as a whole. This section is a veritable treasure trove of process for both aspiring professionals and armchair animation fans like myself. Amidi tells a broader, less personal story here, so on this level the book even holds its own against the "definitive" To Infinity and Beyond: The Story of Pixar.
The back two thirds of the book is chockablock full of art art art, the stuff that we're used to lapping up in the backlist of Pixar art-of books we've all come to love.
The L.A. Book Prize nomination is a big deal, and i'll be the first to tell you, Nate's book is well deserving of the accolades.
• Meanwhile, we here are Top Shelf are in what we like to call, FREAK OUT MODE, as we gear up for the Summer season. Books to rush off to the printers, conventions to prepare for, and maybe — just maybe — i'll be able to take my 4-year old kid camping once or twice. Plus i've got a handful of side-projects i'm working on as well. Besides a couple reviews i'm obligated (and happily so) to write up, the blog updates might get scare around these parts. Not like anyone is holding their breath or anything.
• Local artist Summer Hatfield, is having an art show. Her shit rocks! She writes:
"I'm having my first real gallery show this Thursday, March 5th. Its at The Darras gallery, which is in the Everett lofts, on NW Broadway and Flanders. I have painted a mural on the wall of the gallery and will be showing several new paintings along with some prints and drawings."
TheDarras
328 NW Broadway, Suite 115
Portland, OR 97209
503.358.1418
• First up — if you're enlightened enough to order your comics in advance through the Diamond Previews catalog, two items of special note stand out this month, both of which y'all need to pick up.
First, Top Shelf alum Jeff Lemire's first original graphic novel for Vertigo, titled The Nobody. I can't tell you how stoked i am to read this! Page 116 in the current Previews. And Jeff's even provided sample pages here at his website.
Next up, the sophomore issue of a magazine that's been so long between issues, i forgot entirely about it. But forget no more, as Illo #2 explodes onto the scene with a cover feature on the sweet-ass illustrator & cartoonist, Toronto-based Michael Cho. I'm not talking him up just because i get his tweets every day. (LOTS of them, in fact.) He's the real deal, and really worth checking out.
And speaking of Veeps, master illustrator Wayne Shellabarger will have five of his Vice-presidential portraits from the book on display at the Factory Party in San Francisco!
• Cool shit alert, picked up at Grass Hut on East Burnside: The Whimsical Works of David Weidman, published by Ginko Press. I'd never heard of this guy, and WOW, his work is amazing.
Grass Hut's next epic art show is this forthcoming First Friday, March 6th, titled Curio-Logicals. No info on the site yet, but their promotional postcard features this stunning painted image from exquisitely talented illustrator Elizabeth Haidle... this is one of the coolest images i've seen in months.
• Scary-talented illustrator and Criterion Collection staff designer Eric Skillman blogs here about two projects he's recently wrapped up. Amazing stuff.
I'm still flabbergasted that we've started a working relationship with this wunderkind, which kicked off with his astounding Alec: The Years Have Pants covers, and followed-up with his template design for the AX manga compendium series due to start early next year. Whoo hoo!
Here's the final design for the AX template. Check out his process, and his entire slate of ideas. Great shit!
• Finally, stay tuned for a meaty review of Amid Amidi's terrific new coffee-table artbook, The Art of Pixar Short Films. It's a beaut!
• Ah geez... geek alert! Geek alert!! Norman Saunders Hardcover. Published by The Illustrated Press. Wow. What a mind-bogglingly stunning book this is. For my money, gimme a pop-culture master over the so-called "fine artists" any day. 'Nuff said.
• Jeremy Eaton continues to impress. He's got some rockin' new paintings available (including this Luke Cage) on his website. If i had some extra coin i'd buy 'em all!
• If you happen to be in Terni, Italy the weekend of March 14 / 15, you could do worse than go see Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill at the Fumetterni Comics Festival. And if you happen to speak Italian, read more about it here. (Thanks to Leigh for the tip.)
• Jeff Lemire's newest addition to his trading card collection.
• I barely have the time to read my cereal box every morning, let alone comics. Sad but true state if affairs. But i have read three new books recently, that by their inclusion here (in lieu of actual reviews), are hereby considered officially endorsed by me, for whatever that's worth.
Jin & Jam, by Hellen Jo. Published by Spark Plug. Another entry into the neo-manga fight comics made popular by the likes of Corey Lewis, Brandon Graham, and Bryan Lee O'Malley. Narrative is all over the place, but book succeeds on mad energy and killer art alone.
Shitbeams On The Loose. Various. Published by Tender Loving Empire. In the school of art-brut comics like those one might find from Picture Box (except for the most part better), this anthology is packed with cool art and stories. Stand out is the lead story by Mike Bertino, "Below Us." In a just world, Bertino would be a household name. He's not nearly as prolific making comics as he should be (instead, opting for a "real" career making money as a painter), so any opportunity to root out his work is worth the effort.
Mouse Guard, by David Petersen. Published by Villard. Gorgeously drawn fantasy comic. Story is not as strong as i was hoping it would be, but is a load of furry fun. Carter LOVED it, and i'd say there's no better endorsement than that.
• Finally, here's a sneak peak at a swanky new Jeffrey Brown cover for the forthcoming Ethan Frome reprint, by Edith Wharton. Published by Penguin Classics.
11 February 2009
Surrogates fever is high!
Agent Leigh Walton was in the field at New York Con all weekend, and took this snap, a giant poster overlooking the main lobby entrance to the show, next to a big poster of the Pixar Up movie.
• Tim O'Shea interviews Todd Klein for Robot 6 at Comic Book Resources! Todd is most widely known (and justifiably so) for his masterful lettering skills. What many people don't know, is that he's also an exquisite designer as well. In fact, in addition to lettering and title logo design, Todd is packaging League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century entirely on his own.
• Finally, here's some not-comics fun as sent via email to me by Politico editorial cartoonist Matt Wueker.
Ben & Jerry have created "Yes Pecan!" ice cream flavor for Obama. For George W. they asked for suggestions from the public. Here are some of their favorite responses:
Grape Depression
The Housing Crunch
Abu Grape
Cluster Fudge
Nut'n Accomplished
Iraqi Road
Chock 'n Awe
WireTapioca
imPeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
imPeachMint
Heck of a Job, Brownie!
NeoconPolitan
RockyRoad to Fascism
The Reese's-cession
Cookie D'oh!
Nougalar Proliferation
Death by Chocolate... and Torture
Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
Credit Crunch
Mission Pecanplished
Country Pumpkin
Chunky Monkey in Chief
WMD-licious
Chocolate Chimp
Bloody Sundae
Caramel Preemptive Stripe
I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands . . . with nuts
02 February 2009
Super duper congrats to Jeff and Leslie-Anne Lemire! Wee lad Gus Michael Lemire was born last night, weighing in at 8lbs, 11oz!!
Best of luck, kids. And grab as many naps as you can squeeze in!
29 January 2009
Jeff Lemire's Essex County Trilogy ranks as Greg Burgas' Best Graphic Novel of 2008, on his Comics Should Be Good column over at Comic Book Resources! (Full reviews here.) Nate Powell's Swallow Me Whole comes in third! (Full review here.)
Oh, and here's a sneak-peek at Matt Kindt's first design for the collected Essex County volume coming out this Summer.
• Jeff also scores an interview with Chris Arrant at Newsarama about his forthcoming Vertigo graphic novel, The Nobody.
• Belgian cartoonist, and Top Shelf alum, Jean Bourguignon has a terrific new website! Even if you don't read French, it's a delight for the eyes!
• Previews is out (i have yet to pick it up) bu i'm told that Mike Dawson's new book from AdHouse is listed — Ace Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms. I've read some of this stuff in Project: Superior, and it is awesome!! Buy it! Read it! Love it!
ISBN 978-1-9352330-0-8
Shipping April 2009
Diamond Order Code: FEB094014
You can download a preview PDF from the AdHouse website here, and read an interview with Mike by Tim O'Shea at Comic Book Resources.
• Matt Kindt has some preview pages at his own website for his forthcoming Dark Horse book, Giant Man.
• Portlander Jamie Rich is interviewed at Newsarama!
25 January 2009
Liz Prince is interviewed in comics form by Noah Van Sciver in the new issue of The Comics Journal. (Brian K. Vaughan cover feature.)
• My very very good friend, and one of my mentors in comics, Diana Schutz has a 2-part interview here and here at Comic Book Resources. Check it out, or burn in flames!
• Also, just heard that my other mentor in comics (and oddly enough, Diana's ex-husband and best friend) Bob Schreck was laid off by DC. I just don't know enough details to comment on this, but if this was out of the blue for Bob, and not of his choosing, all i can say is that whoever makes the decisions at DC has their head shoved very firmly up their ass. Bob is a legend in this industry, and justly so.
Best to you with the next chapter, Bob.
• On a brighter note, how amazingly cool is this Wolverine cover homage by Renee French. (Done for Rob Goodin's wicked cool Covered blog.)
well, from Vancouver that is (right across the Columbia River) for yet another reading from VEEPS: Profiles In Insignificance. This marks Bill's second event here in the City of Roses (although sadly sans his partner-in-crime, Veeps illustrator Wayne Shellabarger) to promote his book, and as it's on the Eve of The Obama Inauguration, this stands to be a doozy! So if you're in P-Town next week, come out and see what the fuss is all about!
Monday, January 19, 7:30 p.m. Powell's Books on Hawthorne
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
• So my son Carter (just turned four) and myself are almost wrapped up watching the complete adventures of the original Johnny Quest, and hot damn i gotta tell ya, this is some kick-ass shit! Granted, by today's standards some of the ethnic characterizations or nonchalance towards environmental & wildlife considerations might not be considered very PC, but it's never mean-spirited in any capacity. Especially if one keeps in mind this was aired in 1964, near the peak of the Cold-War.
Created by comics vet Doug Wildey for Hanna-Barbera, the locales are exotic, the technology awesome, the adventures are fun and exciting, and the Bad Guys drown, catch on fire, or get blown up all the freaking time! Networks could never get away with this today. Y'know, usually when i watch old television for nostalgic reasons, it rarely holds up, but Johnny Quest is really quite solid. (I think it actually stands toe-to-toe with it's mutant grandchild, The Venture Bros.)
One thing cracked me up in a recent episode though... Johnny and Hadji get kidnapped, and the ransomer asks for $60,000. (What a small mind.) Anyway, Doctor Quest says, "But how can i raise $60,000?!!" What the fuck? This from the guy with tropical island research labs, hover craft, private live-in sailboats, personal jet-packs, giant laser cannons, etc etc.?? Then i dawned on me... duh. Cold War. High-tech. Do the math. Of course, he's got to be on retainer by the U.S. military, no two ways about it.
Sure the animation is limited, but still, this beats the crap out of most of it's competition of the day. (Or today, for that matter.) I mean, really, who can watch an entire season of Scooby Doo or the Jetsons? (Four-year-olds excluded.)
• It's come to our attention that we've got a new celebrity plug for Nate Powell's recent masterpiece, Swallow Me Whole. Turns out someone from the tv show Heroes? Her name is Brea Grant? Now, i've never seen a single episode of the show myself (i'm a wait-for-the-series-to-wrap, and then watch it all in one big go kind of guy), but after checking out the website of this absolutely stunningly-hot hottie, i think i'll jump the gun on that. How cool. (I wonder if she's looking for a Soul Mate?)
• Finally, a day late and a dollar short, here's some holiday art from Christmas and New Year's past.
• From a Grass Hut newsletter, i've learned that toy design team Gargamel is in town. This show comes highly recommended, if you'll be in Portland this weekend. It's gonna be packed: "We'll be handing out tickets/numbers anytime after noon on Friday. 6pm doors open and at 6:15 we'll call the first number and so on. For everybody else — around 8pm we will offer up the remaining stock, exclusives customs, ect online."
Bwana will be debuting another one of his own kick-ass toys, Dolly the Dolphin, and what's more there will be guests Chanmen, Kiyoka Ikeda, Naoya Ikeda, and Koji Harmon bringing custom sofubi, paintings, exclusive releases.
Oh, and Rick Widmayer of the Screen Door (Brett's FAVORITE restaurant in Portland, hands down) will be providing some very tasty eats.
Just when a couple feet of snow melted from the last storm, the West Coast headquarters here in Portland got dumped on again last night. Then, driving around today i was pelted by a brutal shower of hailstones. Yeesh!
So, in any case, as per usual this time of year, it's been a slow week. Not much to report, except that almost twenty years after the fact i felt obligated to finally watch the highly touted television show Twin Peaks. (Spurred by my budding interest in episodic entertainment, rooted in a desire to create/oversee various iterations of web-specific content.) I'm roughly halfway done, and to be honest i was expecting to loath this. Well hellfire, anyway, but i love this so far! All of the noise i heard at the time about it being weird for weird's sake is downright wrong. Granted, it may have been complex for its time, but if anything, it may have been a blueprint for the currently hot trend of meta-television. That is, shows that take an entire season (or more) to tell a story. Kyle MacLachlan as the unflappable Special Agent Dale Cooper is a freaking hero for the ages. The rest of the cast, and the characters they play are spot-on. Plot unfolds at rapid pace, as the whodunit rolls along, all the while characters making growth from episode to episode. What really boggles, however, and something i don't associate with David Lynch, is the heart and triumph of the human spirit that shines through. Wow. Ahead of its time.
• Meanwhile, Top Shelf veteran David Yurkovich has recently self-published volume 2 of his superhero rumination Altercations. Altercations volume 1 was the very first book i ever read in the Yurkoverse, and i became an instant fan, thereafter publishing two collections of (remastered) previous material. It's terrific to see this finally complete, and i'm stoked to read it. If you like you men-in-tights flavored with a serious dose of humor and weird, check this out. Available at Indy Planet or by way of his own site, Sleeping Giant.
• And here is a bitchin' Batman illustration nabbed from Lukas Ketner's blog. This guy can draw. DIg this, and spread the good word.
• Stripburger News!
The 48th issue of Stripburger features two special sections.
The first one introduces us to Dongery, a group of comics artists from Norway (Bendik Kaltenborn, Flu Hartberg, Sindre Goksoyr and Kristoffer Kjolberg).
The second sections reveals one of the youngest comics scene in Europe - that of Latvia (Anete Melece, Kaspars Groshevs and Ingrida Picukane). Also in the focus of this issue is Marco Corona, perhaps one of the most intriguing Italian cartoonists at this moment. Corona was interviewed by Paola Bristot.
Stripburger no. 48 also boasts an unusually high percentage of Slovene authors. Domen Finzgar makes his debut in this issue, while Damijan Sovec returns after a long absence with a series of travel comics. Other highlights of the issue include works by Olive Booger (France), Janek Koza (Poland), Tea Hvala (Slovenia), Gasper Rus (Slovenia) and the duo of Matej Lavrencic and Koco (Slovenia), to name just a few of them.
• B.ü.L.b comix, a non-profit making publishing house for independant graphic novels and comix based in Geneva, Switzerland, has just launched version 2.0 of the website and thought you'd be interested to visit it.
i highly recommend attending the re-opening of Guapo Comics. They moved a couple blocks away, and are back in business. But wait, there's more!... This Saturday, Guapo Comics & Coffee celebrates the re-opening at their new location, along with a graphic novel release party for local cartoonists Jesse Reklaw (The Night of Your Life), Nicole Georges (Invincible Summer volume II), and Theo Ellsworth (Capacity). Joining them will be Julia Gfrörer, John Isaacson, and Sean Christensen for multimedia cartoonist readings, live drawing, and a comics social. Experience cutting edge comics on the crossroads of the strange yet personal -- the everyday fantastic -- what can only be described as the funhouse mirror of your lucid deja vu re-enacted for your pleasure. Plus an art show, book signing, beer, and cookies.
Topic of discussion — his brilliantly conceived and executed Library of American Comics. Terry and the Pirates, Little Orphan Annie, and Scorchy Smith have all seen gorgeous treatments (arguably the best ever) and starting soon, Dean will take over the Dick Tracy reprint series, and enlarge its size, bringing it up the the Terry book dimensions.
We live in a new Golden Age of classic comic strip reprints people (see also: Popeye, Peanuts, Dennis the Menace and Jules Feiffer from Fantagraphics; Walt and Skeezix from D & Q; Little Nemo, Little Sammy Sneeze, and Walt and Skeezix Color Sundays, from Sunday Press). We should all be thankful.
• I really dig the tiny little boutique here in Portland called Tender Loving Empire. Not only do they sell lots of nifty hand-made crafts and shit, but they create and produce cool stuff as well. AND they are a commercial screen-printing outfit as well.
You could do worse than visit their store (or the website, if you don't live in Portland), while you gift-shopping for your hipster friends.
Art by Andrew Sloan.
Two books come especially highly recommended: Mike Bertino's Pinwheel, and the anthology Shitbeems On The Loose, featuring the likes of Luke Ramsey, Mike Bertino, Drew Beckmeyer, Ron Rege jr, Brent Harada, Hector Serna, jr., Thomas Crawford, Rusty Jordan, Matt Furie, Dave Nuss, RobynJordan, and Grant Reynolds.
• And another new drawing for the forthcoming, revamped Soap Lady reprint.
Tom McLean has left the Bags & Boards blog for Variety dot com. Bummer. But he's keeping the name and blogging on his own now, free from the constraints of his corporate masters. Whoo hoo! Tom knows his shit, people, so bookmark this site pronto. His links list alone is a marvel.
• Super-wonk Bill Kelter is back to his blogerific ways on the Veeps blog, after a brief post-election hiatus. And he delivers the goods, as always.
• Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Stef Lenk is part of a launch party to celebrate her new comic, Tea Time #2.
LAUNCH! TeaTime 2 and Brick Literary Journal 82: high literature, visual oddities, and gratuitous drinking at Mitzi's Sister.
1554 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario
Wednesday the 3rd December (doors at 7.30)
There will be readings and excellent company and drinks and books for sale too. As always, friends, strangers, and those appreciative of oddities are all welcome.
Giant Robot L.A. That's correct y'all.
Little Paintings 3 at GR2
November 15 - December 10
Reception: Saturday, November 15, 6:30 -10:00
Giant Robot 2. 2062 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025. gr2.net. (310) 445-9276
Indie cartoonist James Kochalka is well known for having a raw, humorous, and powerful style and prolific pace; he draws one diary strip a day for his Web site, and still manages to create an ever-growing catalog of graphic novels. His range extends from the autobiographical (American Elf) to kid-friendly (Johnny Boo) to serious (The Cute Manifesto) to raunchy (SuperF*ckers) to iconic (Monkey vs. Robot). His comix work has won four Ignatz awards and one Harvey award. He is widely regarded as the inventor of the daily-diary comic strip, and has inspired countless younger artists.
The Burlington, VT-based artist has also released several CDs with his band, James Kochalka Superstar. His song "Britney's Silver Can" was named one of the 100 best songs of 2006 by Rolling Stone, and his song "Hockey Monkey" was used as the theme song for the Fox television sitcom The Loop.
For Little Paintings 3, Kochalka is supplementing his acrylic 2" x 2" paintings on 3" x 3" paper with a few that are comparatively large. "There are a few that are 4" x 4" and some that are 6" x 6". Still little compared with the rest of the paintings of the world, but they'll feel giant in the context of my world," he says. Some recurring themes include royal cats, adventurous blobs, and tumors, happy apples, and crazy worms.
The multitude will not be framed but are quite suitable for framing. "I'm kind of against posters. I think people should have real art made by real human hands in their homes" Kochalka says of his small and affordably priced paintings.
A reception from 6:30 to 10:00 on Saturday, November 15 will include a special performance of music composed by the artist on his Game Boy.
• Going back to APE, the weekend before the election (Whoo hoo OBAMA!!!)..., San Francisco was great fun (especially tending bar at Isotope — damn, i got myself pretty hammered),
Here's Wayne Shellabarger and Bill Kelter pimping their amazing new book Veeps.
And here's the loot i brought home. (Sadly, no time yet to read most of it.)
But what made the weekend for me, was my little man Carter, and his Halloween appearance as Batman. This photoset shows his transformation.
• Meanwhile, this weekend just past Top Shelf exhibited (Leigh manned the table most of the weekend, since i was on Kid Watch) at the annual Portland book fair called Wordstock. A quick observation... Portland is widely (and justifiably) known as a book-loving city. The organizers promoted the heck out of this event. Flyers, posters, and exhibition catalogs have been anywhere and everywhere for the last six weeks. Heck, they even got the likes of John Hodgman, Lynda Barry and Alison Bechdel to come and read. And yet, the place was a ghost town virtually all weekend. Yes, the big-name panels were well attended, but the isles were barren. What gives?
In any case, i had fun in spite of myself. And i FINALLY picked up the stunning Local deluxe hardcover by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly. I'd read most of the issues as they were (slowly) coming out, but had yet to read the last three. Just finished these tonight after i tucked Carter into bed. Holy crap, this is such a terrific book. From concept, to execution. From content to packaging. Simply magnificent! Highly recommended.
• This is quite possibly the coolest fanboy shit i've EVER seen. (I used to be lead tenor in the high school jazz choir, AND a massive fanboy of all the movies referenced in this video — except for E.T. God, i hate that flick.)
• Finally, more Kochalka. Here is an early rough for James' cover for the 2009 Top Shelf Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) comic book, and then his final. Well done, James!
Heading to Alternative Press Expo this weekend? Top Shelf's West Coast dream team, Leigh Walton and Brett Warnock, will be at tables 320-322 all weekend, together with the following creators:
--Jeffrey Brown (SULK #1 starring Bighead & Friends!)
--Renée French (THE TICKING, MICROGRAPHICA)
--Robert Goodin (THE MAN WHO LOVED BREASTS)
--Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger (VEEPS: PROFILES IN INSIGNIFICANCE)
--Nate Powell (SWALLOW ME WHOLE)
--Liz Prince (DELAYED REPLAYS)
And don't forget to come by Isotope on Saturday night for Top Shelf Happy Hour at 8pm, leading into the Isotope Award for Minicomics! Brett Warnock will be shaking up the tasty drinks, while Nate Powell rocks a live art jam with Joshua W. Cotter! You can't miss it!
• Occasional Top Shelf freelancer Chris Ross had this to say, regarding his type decision on our awesome new book Veeps:
Veeps is set in a typeface called Adobe Caslon Pro. From my research, I found that Benjamin Franklin, in addition to being a ladykiller drunk, and perennial not-veep, was a printer. He had two favorite typefaces: Baskerville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baskerville), which many typesetters of the day called "illegible" and a typeface called Caslon. And it was Caslon that Franklin chose when he typeset the mass-produced "Declaration of Independence." The unique properties in Veeps are the ligatures, which I've jumped up to eleven to reach for the hyperbolic nature of the text. It's noticeable as being archaic and boosie, but once you finish the introduction, you definitely get in on the joke. This specific typeface, Adobe Caslon Pro, is the closest and most complete recreation of the typeface that I could find. When I read Bill's words, and saw Wayne's portraits, and saw what Brett had in mind with the decorative elements, this whimsical voice of you three (plus the specter of Staros) came out, Borg-like. It sounded like Caslon.
• Speaking of Veeps, check out this extensive interview with Bill and Wayne by Tim O'Shea.
• And just to add some color to this post... YAM author Corey Barba does more than cute kid's stuff. He's also done some racy adult entertainment (with the Fantagraphics porn line Eros, for example). Here's a boss little image titled Lipstick Bikini.
19 October 2008
Alex Robinson's video interview with Jonah Weiland is up on Comic Book Resources. I got to attend this interview and suck down some suds on the infamous CBR Party Yacht in the San Diego Marina. Now THAT's the way to do San Diego!
• So, here's a piece by Eric Powell, and two by Jim Rugg, which was supposed to run in a reprinted edition of Doug TenNaple's Top Shelf graphic novel Creature Tech. Oh, but wait, Doug took it away from Top Shelf, in spite of the fact that Chris did a mighty tight job story-editing the book into the kick-ass version it ended up being. Sadly, these images will now never see print. I'm going to have to style Eric and Jim with some Top Shelf swag next time i see them.
• Nate Powell is interviewed at my favorite podcast, Indie Spinner Rack!
• Tom Hart, Matthew Thurber and Lauren Weinstein are in a show of original art together called GODDESS, MOUSE and MAN at the brand new 92nd St Y Tribeca.
• Finally, i must mention my favorite new comic in a long time. I'd heard some folks talking about this at the San Diego Con, so i picked it up on a whim. Matt Furie's Boys Club might be something of a guys comic, but holy crap, it is awesome. Containing the mostly 1-3 page self-contained adventures (?) of four slacker, 20-something roommates, the first issue was self-published, while the second issue was picked up by Buenaventura Press. On paper this comic shouldn't be anything more than stupid poop jokes. But there's something very real about these characters. At various points in my life i've lived with, or been any one of these cats. Matt uses lots of fun formal techniques to add odd layers to his humor. Ultimately, i'm having a hard time describing this. Needless to say, both issues come highly recommended.
It's Bobby Kennedy and Greg Palast releasing the flaming hot full-color investigative comic book, STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE!
Pow! Zap! No more joking with our rights, Mr. Rove!
Click here and get the 24-page investigative comic book by Greg Palast and Bobby Kennedy: STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE.
With the full story of the investigation you'll soon see in Rolling Stone magazine - illustrated by razor-sharp pencils of Ted Rall, Lukas Ketner and Lloyd Dangle.
SIX ways they're STEALING your vote - and SEVEN ways to STEAL IT BACK.
(C'mon - 'fess up - do you really know what to do if they hand you a 'provisional' ballot?)
Make a $100 tax deductible donation at StealBackYourVote.org and we'll send you 25 to pass out to troublemakers of your choice.
And, for every $100 donation, we will give away another 400 to voters to vulnerable voters in swing states. We just sent eight cases to Santiago Juarez. Santiago's working with young Hispanic voters of New Mexico.
Can you help us send him more? Or donate $75+ and get a half dozen comix plus the DVD (signed), The Election Files, my BBC reports on the vote snatchers.
Pick up 10 copies of the guide for a donation of $50. We send'm right away by priority mail.
Or give us the donation, we'll send'm to a church designated by our co-sponsor Jesse Jackson's Operation Rainbow/PUSH.
Thanks to your prior generosity, we're offering the printing plates FREE of any fee to us to any magazine or weekly that wants to insert comic. (You want to reproduce the guide on a mass scale - you got it. Contact zach (at) gregpalast.com)
Or you can download the comic for a donation of a penny or more (more, PLEASE), at www.StealBackYourVote.org.
Spread this link! Pow! Zap! Take that, Katherine! Steal Back Your Vote is a project of the not-for-profit non-partisan Palast Investigative Fund.
WHAT'S THAT UP IN THE SKY?! It's our Super Sponsors! Voto Latino, Operation Rainbow Push, Air America Radio, Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now! and other crusaders for Truth, Justice and the American Way.
Contact us at interviews (at) StealBackYourVote.org.
Getting caught up, finally. Even though the change of venue has changed the dynamic of the old locale, this is still one of my favorite comics festivals North America has to offer. Hands down. Special props to my great friend Greg Bennett, who helped pull me out of a special kind of tailspin. I love you, m'man!
Here's a smattering of what i picked up at the show. No time for even bullet reviews... needless to say, i read this stuff at the airport and on two planes back home. In keeping with my tendencies towards dreaded "Team Comics" boosterism, i won't waste my time or yours talking about lame books, instead focusing on the good shit. So if you read about it here, that means it comes recommended.
Teeny Bikini #5, by Rob Ullman. (Self-published.) Image below is a terrific print he made for the show, titled Stir Crazy.
Papercutter #8. Edited by the great Greg Means. Published by Tugboat Press. (Also just finally read Papercutter #7... easily my favorite anthology being published today. Kramers what?)
Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream #2, by Laura Park. (Self-published.) It's only a mtter of time until Laura is hailed as one of the greatest cartoonists in the history of the United States. She deserved won the Ignatz Award at the show for Outstanding Artist. Whoo hoo!
The Quest for the Missing Girl, by Jiro Taniguchi. Published by Ponent Mon. STUNNING! (Have i ever mentioned how much i love this author, my favorite manga cartoonist of all time? Oh, i have?) Special thanks to Deb, whom i met for the first time at the show.
:01 First Second: Great Graphic Novels for Everyone. This is a little mini-comic done by Editorial Director Mark Siegel.
Bets Are Off, by Nate Powell / flipbook / Cakewalk, by Rachel Bormann and Nate Powell. (Self-published.)
Mesmo Delivery, by Rafael Grampa'. Published by AdHouse. (This is so freaking amazing!)
Fierce Ease, by Miriam Libicki. (Self-published.) I'm so into Miriam's incredibly beautiful drawn essays.
• Bwana Spoons has a spectacular new print available at Grass Hut!
• Here's an early rough by James Kochalka for the 2009 Top Shelf Free Comic Book Day comic.
• From the classified dossier on (Veeps authors) Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger, a photo has turned up with them in attendance at the swearing in of LBJ... seriously, these guys are such wonks! (And there's Jackie Kennedy, no less!)
Page 202: Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!, by Scott Morse. Published by AdHouse. The cover here says all you need to know.
Page 292: The Quest for the Missing Girl, by Jiro Taniguchi. Published by Potent / Fanfare. I think Taniguchi is probably the most underrated manga master in North America. The storytelling is sublime, and his art is transcendental.
The following message is not a part of Previews. I lifted it from the web, because it is awesome.
but if was in Portland, i'd check this event, On the Margins, at Floating World Comics out in a heartbeat. Dunja Jankovic's comics are sublime and haunting.
• James Kochalka gets some love at SPX (In Conversation with Heidi MacDonald), even while Top Shelf gets snubbed with not a single Ignatz Award nomination.
• The new Frazetta hardcover, Telling Tales, FINALLY came out... nice package, but oh god, why did they add such horrifically garish colors to Frazetta's insanely delicate and sublime brushwork? (Of which he did far too little.) I haven't read into the text yet, but let's presume two possibilities. The editor had access to high-quality material for a particular strip from which he could scan, and reproduce the artwork. In this case — and it certainly seems this to be the case — the art should have been reproduced in b&w. If on the other hand high-quality material was not on hand, then a far better option would have been to scan the actual comics pages where they ran in the first place. No doubt line quality may be lost, but the undeniably cool look of the page as a lush relic, yellowing pages, and crude-yet-terrific half-tone coloring and all make up for said loss. A great example of this is the Art Spiegleman / Chip Kidd presentation of a choice sampling of work in their book Jack Cole and the Plastic Man. Another fine example of this methodology of archiving used to good effect is in the more recent Sheena: Queen of the Jungle collection, published by Devil's Due. (The star attraction being, for this viewer, of course the contributions of Matt Baker.)
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' new Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is an instant masterpiece. Wow...
And speaking of Nate, geez, does this guy ever sleep? He just launched a smashing new website.
• In the better-late-than-never category, after what seems like years, i've finally found a day to pour over a ton of convention purchases, submissions, and what have you that have been piling up. A book Rex, by Danijel Zezelj was in the mix. I've read some of this guy's short form material in anthologies here and there. I thought it was o.k. but not so much as to live up to the hype. Well this sucker is like a fucking roundhouse kick to the face, pumping with high energy jams. And his art here seems MUCH more nuanced... a better use of grey tones that what i've seen before. Big thanks to publisher Jason Thibault at Optimum Wound comics for the hook-up.
• Our Top Shelf pals at Grass Hut are fishing for an intern. These cats are as cool as it comes, let me tell you. (Two weekends ago i attended a terrific opening for the brilliant L.A. based artist Andrew Brandou. Local Southern-style restaurant Screen Door made waffles peach-foster style... i thought i'd died and gone to heaven.)
Join the Grass Hut family. Be a part of an art movement bigger then the individuals involved. Learn the hands on nitty gritty skills to run an independent art market.
-Work with artists from Portland and all over the world.
-See how a tiny business handles international business.
-Understand DIY art marketing byway of street cred.
-Practice basic graphic design (website, postcards, posters)
-Have fun.
-Use the studio to paint and drawl.
To learn more simply contact Bwana Spoons or Justin “Scrappers” Morrison. Grass Hut (Art Market). 811 E. Burnside. Portland, Oregon. (503) 445-9924.
Grasshut@grasshutcorp.com
• Max Estes sure is staying busy, and cranking out choice pieces of art. Go. Buy.
• Nate Powell's book tour for Swallow Me Whole had a couple slight changes. Here are the final tour dates, as well as some boss art he created for this too.
*10/4-5 @ SPX, North Bethesda, MD
*10/7 @ Ada Books, Providence RI. 7pm.
*10/8 @ Million Year Picnic, Cambridge MA. 5pm.
*10/9 @ Giant Robot, New York NY.
*10/10 @ Rocketship Comics, Brooklyn NY.
*10/17 @ Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN.
*10/18 @ Quimby's, Chicago IL.
*10/25 @ Floating World, Portland OR.
*10/26 @ Comics Dungeon, Seattle WA.
*10/29 @ Comic Relief, Berkeley CA. 5-7pm.
*11/1-2 @ APE, San Francisco CA.
*11/1 @ Isotope, San Francisco CA. night time.
*11/13 @ Bizarro Comics, Athens GA. 3-6pm.
*11/22 @ Vintage Phoenix, Bloomington IN.
*11/28 @ Collector's Edition, North Little Rock AR.
• David Chelsea has a beautiful new web site.
Here's some art i nabbed from it.
• Steve Lafler has been painting like a fiend! Check it out!
• A tip of the hat to Benton Jew (one half of the outstanding and criminally underrated Jew Bros.) for the lead on his blog about the vintage Space Ghost dvd set, which features a documentary on the legendary Alex Toth. The doc isn't perfect by any means (cheesy effects, maudlin music, etc.), but it was a wonderful window into one of comics' masterminds. Well worth watching.
• Previews Picks for the month of September. (If it's not too late to make a difference.)
-Land of the Giants lunchbox. I saw one of these at San Diego, and man are they cool.
-Vintage illustration lovers (like myself) should be palpitating with the news of two forthcoming hardcovers; monographs for Norman Sounders and Reynold Brown.
-TwoMorrows continues with two more creator spotlights in their Modern Masters series. And while i only have roughly half of the series thus far, i will indeed be picking up the new ones featuring Mike Ploog and Kyle Baker.
-Sweet! The Adventures of Tintin, Hardcover Boxed Set!
-Stan's Soapbox. Verily, True Believers, all of Stan Lee's hyperbolic editorials from the late 60s and 70's in under one cover! I freaking lapped these up as a kid... Kudos!
-Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville, by Ted Stearn. (Fantagraphics.)
Well, this series took forever and a day to be completed, but this great book is well worth the wait. Awesome awesome stuff.
-OMFG! The complete Blazing Combat Hardcover! Holy crap, this is great news! Also, from the fine folks at Fantagraphics.
-The Venice Chronicles hardcover, by Enrico Casarosa. (AdHouse Books.) I've had the pleasure of reading this, and it's gorgeous! Buy this book.
-Rejoice!! The second mammoth oversized slipcased hardcover of Kirkman, Adlard, and Rathburn's Walking Dead is coming. One of the greatest comics of all time. Serously.
Now that both Obama and McCain have announced their VP picks, the media are stuck on 'em 24/7... but we know a couple of guys who have been Veep-crazy since Sarah Palin was modeling swimwear!
The hilariously cynical Bill Kelter, author of the upcoming Top Shelf book Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance, has been blogging up a storm over at www.veeps.us. Meanwhile his partner in crime, Wayne Shellabarger, has whipped up two more killer portraits in the style of the 46 that appear throughout Veeps, celebrating the nominations of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Check 'em out!
Veeps is scheduled to hit in late October... just in time for the election (and 47th Veep)!
• Well Bill, Wayne and myself are back from the Denver location shoot on Road to Insignificance, the film about the life & times of Veeps author's Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger. And while we didn't get to attend any actual events, the streets were alive with activity.
With principle shooting wrapped, i'm now totally stoked to see a rough cut of this baby, although editing won't begin until November. We've been playing this close to the vest somewhat, and as a straight documentary, but it's bound to come out sooner than later that while the core of Bill and Wayne's friendship is the real deal, we're straying from the truth in this film. Oh, and i'm the director.
Meanwhile, Bill made yet another guest appearance a few days ago on KPOJ, the Air America affiliate here in Portland. Awesome!
• Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Joe Decie put up this terrific strip on Webcomics Nation.
• James Kochalka did this freaky fun Fantastic Four page (issue #9, page 17) on commission.
• Peter Kuper is editing the next issue of WW3. I do believe it's a wordless issue. This stunning Eric Drooker cover boggles, as his covers always do.
The following Top Shelf books made the cut:
• THREE FINGERS in the "Fantasy" category (Rich Koslowski)
• BOX OFFICE POISON & TRICKED "general fiction" (Alex Robinson)
• GOODBYE CHUNKY RICE "general fiction" & BLANKETS "non-fiction" (Craig Thomspon)
• HEY MISTER "humor" (Pete Sickman-Garner)
• HUTCH OWEN "humor" (Tom Hart)
• LOST GIRLS "general fiction" (Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie)
• MONKEY VS ROBOT "humor" (James Kochalka)
• OWLY "adventure" (Andy Runton)
• SAME DIFFERENCE "general fiction" (Derek Kirk Kim)
• Besides that his work kicks serious quantities of ass, Nate Powell is every publishers dream. He arranged and schedule the following promotional tout in support of the forthcoming Swallow Me Whole, AND is designing and producing a 2-color screenprinted poster for this as well. Here is his tour schedule, and a rough design for the poster.
9/26: gallery show, Sweet Hickory, Bloomington IN (featuring pages from SMW and other stuff)
10/4-5: SPX
10/7: Ada Books, Providence RI
10/8: Million Year Picnic, Cambridge MA
10/9: Giant Robot, New York NY
10/10: Rocketship Comics, Brooklyn NY (TBC)
10/11: Desert Island, Brooklyn NY (TBC)
10/18: Quimby's, Chicago IL
10/19: Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN
10/25: Floating World, Portland OR
10/26: Comics Dungeon, Seattle WA
10/30: Comic Relief, Berkeley CA (TBC)
11/1-2: APE
11/1: Isotope, San Francisco CA
11/11: TBA, Savannah GA
11/12 or 13: Bizarro, Athens GA
11/22: Vintage Phoenix, Bloomington IN
11/28: Collector's Edition, North Little Rock AR
I've been very VERY busy as of late, so apologies for the long wait between updates. I've been following a documentary film crew around, which is making a film about Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger, the authors of our very own non-fiction history book, Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance. It's been a great deal of fun and i'm having a terrific time, but wow am i exhausted. I have a brand new appreciation for filmmaking, and how hard these crew members work. We'll try and get a teaser and/or trailer for the film up soon. Working title — Road to Insignificance.
• I don't read Spanish, but i did receive an email from an outfit in Spain called Polaqia, i think via an aquaintance name Kike Benlloch. These covers for some new comics sure looks swell though.
• James Kochalka's nifty new American Elf ad for an upcoming issue of The Comics Journal.
• More Pat Moriarity goodness:
"Here's where you can get the brand new Crustacean Records double DVD featuring my package design, poster, and a 10 minute video featurette about me, plus about 5 HOURS of high quality video footage of killer midwest rock acts. (Bands like MAD TRUCKER GONE MAD, AWESOME SNAKES, THE SKINTONES, DRUNK DRIVERS, LADY BEARD and more.)
• Scott Campbell is a busy busy man. You can see his work in three different shows. Here. Here. And here.
• And finally, i saw that the Swedish anthology we're doing sub-distro for (From the Shadow of Northern Lights) hit stands yesterday. Great stuff. Check it out!
• Veeps writer Bill Kelter scores a piece on the front page of Politico! Sweet!
Then, on the same day he was interviewed on Portland's Progressive Talk Radio, KPOJ with Carl Wolfson.
Shooting starts next week on the documentary being made about Bill and Veeps illustrator Wayne Shellabarger, with (YIKES!) me at the helm. Oh, and speaking of which, Bill's co-worker Bill Lovejoy sent me this image recently. What the fu?@!!!
• I scored some great shit at San Diego this year, rabid fanboy that i am. Krazy & Ignatz 1935-1944 by Chris Ware, from Fantagraphics. I couldn't find a link to this on their site, nor an image for it, but this is the second mammoth volume of reprints and it's insanely gorgeous. Even more so, however, is the French edition collecting the entirely of the classic crime series Torpedo by Abuli, Bernet and Toth. My French isn't particularly great, but holy crap this is one of the most impressive all-in-one collections i've ever held in my sweaty little paws. Richard Starkings gave me the terrific, lush Art of Ladronn hardcover. His editorial is an inspirational account of how he met Ladronn working together on the (still fun) Cable comic years ago, and ended up giving him free reign to do comics as he sees fit, in his own time. Yes, the timetable has been glacially slow, but as i was then compelled to buy the first two hardcover Hipflask collections of three, the results are sooooooooo worth the wait. Dizzyingly beautiful. I got so much more, which i'll mention soon, but for this update, i also scored two more awesome hardcover art books: Michael Golden's Heroes & Villians, published by Little Eva Ink, and Retroactive: Darwyn Cooke 1998 - 2008, published by BrandStudio Press. Two of my favorite cartoonist. Two bitchin' books. (Now we just need an Art Adams hardcover to round out the list.)
Oh yeah, and one of the inserts in the Con Bags was this funny-as-hell Watchmen parody, courtesy of Mad Magazine.
• Indigo Kelleigh, best known as the founder of the Stumptown Comics Fest here in Portland, is also a great cartoonist. He's just launched a new strip called Ms. Ellie Connelly. He rocked my world years ago with his air-tight mini-series Chutney Point, and so far this looks as good or better. Good to see you back, Indy!
• My longtime friend Dave Vlasaty (we met on the crew team back at University of Oregon back in the day), just road tripped to the tip of Baja with his kick-ass sons Aiden and Angus... oh, and Owly!!!
• Last but not least, Calling All Aspiring Animators!... Top Shelf is looking for cheap talent who will work for lots and lost of free comics to help us build some animated trailers for various projects. Must already dig Top Shelf (otherwise, i mean.. what's the point, right?) and be serious and committed. There's no paycheck involved, but really we do take care of our family.
Contact me at brett@topshelfcomix.com if interested. Please though, no attachments. Links to url portfolios ideal.
• This showed up in my po box a while back, and i just got around to reading it... what a stunner. Clearly a loving Frankenstein homage with nods to comics of old and stuff like Warren's Monster's of Filmland, this oversized comic is a real formal masterpiece. The art is multi-media collage pasted up on newspapers. The look feels gritty and intense, and the narrative is a wild pop-culture tour de force. Great stuff.
• Mr. Max Estes has some cool new stuff available at Made by Max.
• Heads-up from Vancouver cartoonist, and Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Don King, who tipped me off to a terrific sounding show in Vancouver, B.C.
• Had this terrific submission-envelope art hanging in my workshop for forever... figured i show it to the world.
• I've been dipping into my enormous to-read pile a little lately. Standouts include:
Eschew #1 (mini-comic), by Robert Sergel. Apparently this guy has been making comics for a long long time, yet i'd never heard of him until he sent me this mini. And it's really solid. Using a "clear-line" style, the work i've read is of the shorter, poetic style, more than long narratives. In any case, one could spend days reading the plethora of comics he has on his website. So get to it, people!
I lifted this comic from his website.
Nerd Burglar (comic), Free Comic Book Day book by Tugboat Press, Teenage Dinosaur, and Sparkplug Comics. A potpourri of comics fun, this puppy feature's an awesome twisted story by legendary punk cartoonist Bobby Madness and an appearance by the always-good-to-see and sadly underrated ink stud Chris Cilla. What really rocked me though, was a strip called "Fifteen Variations on The First Day We Met," by Sarah Oleksyk, which plays with formalism to wonderful effect. Too hard to describe, i recommend you just order this book. It costs one penny, plus postage, cheap-wads!!
• From comics cognoscenti Craig Yoe:
"Yo, Comix Fan!
"I'm joining the San Diego Zoo, i.e. the San Diego ComicCon. I'll be signing my new books Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings and Comic Arf, and I'll be on some panels."
Last Gasp
July 24th, 1:30-2:30 Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings book signing at Last Gasp booth 1616.
Fantagraphics
July 24th, 6:00-7:00 Comic Arf book signing at Fantagraphics booth 1716
Drawing Demo: Spotlight on Dean Yeagle
July 25, 3:30-4:30
Room 30CDE
I will be the panel moderator.
Fantagraphics
July 25th, 5:00-6:00 Comic Arf book signing at Fantagraphics booth 1716
Fantagraphics
July 26th, 11:00-12:00 Comic Arf book signing at Fantagraphics booth 1716
Last Gasp
July 26th, 1:30-2:30 Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings book signing at Last Gasp booth 1616.
The Launch of Abrams ComicArts
July 26th, 3:00-4:00
Craig's book will be announced!
• And once again, because i can... here's Cfunk doing his Happy Dance.
It's been years since i last updated here. My bad. Catching up.
• First, Slovenian-produced anthology Stripburger #47 arrived in my po box last week, and it's a beauty. While many of the essays are in the native language, the comics themselves are all in English, and they are ample. The whole affair kicks off with a stunning wraparoud cover and lead feature and interview with French cartoonist Matthias Lehmann. Other standouts include Filipe Abranches (Portugal), Marcelo D'Salete (Brazil), Bendik Kaltenborn (Norway)Thomas Vielle (France), Mawil (Germany), and Gunnar Lundkvist (Sweden).
One of their best issues in a long while, this issue is really worth tracking down. Ostensibly Top Shelf is the North American distributor, but i just looked, and i don't see anything on our site. I'll look into this and get back.
• Merry Mike Dawson (Freddie and Me) sent me a link to a terrific new strip, title "Max, Get Out of My Room!" What happens when super-powered tween brothers get in a fight? Read on...
• Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko. Wow wow wow wow!!!! Author Blake Bell actually pitched this book to Top Shelf several years ago, and i just couldn't get Chris (Staros) interested in backing me in my desire to pick it up. I was bummed, but that is the nature of our partnership, so i let it go. Having ravenously devoured this book, and reading the author's notes on the evolution of it's development, this is probably a good thing. The content and narrative thrust changed radically. Moreover, the design by Fantagraphics designer Adam Grano is astonishing.
It's a wonderful companion volume to the recent Kirby! coffee-table art book. Except that where that book mostly regurgitated information about Kirby and his work that has been around for years, the wealth of information regarding Ditko's background and the analysis of his life's work, in Bell's book, make for an engaging and riveting read, covering ground virtually unknown heretofore. I want to pull it off the shelf and start reading it over again already.
I will state right now, that this book will easily end the calendar year 2008 in my Top Five books of the year, if not Number One. Very highly recommended.
• How cool is this cover art for our (as yet unannounced) one-shot by Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Brecht Evens. The book is titled Night Animals. More on this soon.
• Totally not comics, but incredibly cool. I was tipped off to an amazing video of (from the website) "world-renowned kayakers following the banks of Africa's White Nile River with one mission: to discover uncharted whitewater."
A spine-tingling short film, made by the writer of the article Aaron Retting, can be linked to at Flux magazine. (A student magazine of my alma mater, University of Oregon.)
"Just a heads up -- my new book TRANNY: Boys Will Be Girls is in the current Diamond Previews catalog on Page 330 (listed with Sparkplug Comic books). Now is the time to pester your favorite comics retailer to order the book!"
• Things i scored at MoCCA and am just now getting around to dive into:
Love/Pain by the artist named Ephameron, published by Bries. Not comics, but rather, wonderful and beautiful drawings, photos, portraits and what have you, in a terrific hardcover package. Sublime. The artist was actually working the Bries table (in place of our old pal Ria Schulpen, who wasn't there for the first time in many years), so i got a wonderful drawing inside as well.
- Skyscrapers of the Midwest, collected hardcover, by Josh Cotter. Published by AdHouse.
Awesome. I have to admit that black humor in comics is pretty hit or miss for me. Some of the more misanthropic ones are just plain juvenile or creepy as fuck. On the other hand, in the hands of some — like Ivan Brunetti — self-loathing has never been more raging with humanity. Enlightenment through hitting rock bottom and rolling in the muck.
Josh Cotter is something different altogether. Dark as it gets, but the humor is wacky and dare i say, joyous in it's affection. I'm not sure what scares me more, Josh's comics themselves, or the fact that on the surface this guy seems like a "normal" human being, when clearly this is not the case. No matter, this book rocks. Many thanks to Chris Pitzer and Josh Cotter. I owe you one, kids.
- While i was in Montreal on the way to New York, we stopped by a bitchin' store called Planète BD, which blew my mind. No other North American store has this much French Bandes Dessinee. (French comics, mostly as oversized albums, or new format graphic novels.)
Anyway, i picked up two volumes of a crime story called RG written by Pierre Dragon (who was a special agent himself, before becoming a writer) and drawn by the incredible Swiss inkstud Frederik Peeters. (Peeters is most known here for his book Blue Pills, published by Houghton Mifflin.)
GREAT looking stuff.
- And down the street (in Montreal) i picked up a gorgeous new Blutch graphic novel, C’était le BonheurC’était le Bonheur. Stunning comics. I'm reminded here of Jules Feiffer's older Village Voice strips stylistically. It's pretty depressing that no one's really made any inroads getting his material into print here in the U.S. Ah well, c'est la vie.
- Last BD i picked up was Daniel Blancou's delightful Le Roi de la Savane, a terrific athrpomorphic treat.
• Charles Hatfield and his cohort Craig at Though Balloonists give careful consideration of Eddie Campbell's Alec graphic novel, How to Be An Artist. Good reading to prepare the world for the mammoth all-in-one Top Shelf Complete Alec tome next year.
• From the desk of Eric Reynolds:
"Rhea and I returned home late last night with a new little member of our family, after spending the weekend in the hospital. Clementine Bean Reynolds was born Saturday afternoon (June 21) at 3:15 PM in Ballard's Swedish Hospital. She weighed 7lbs, 2 oz, and is 20 inches long. Rhea and Clem are both doing great and we're overwhelmed but happier than we could have imagined. Clem has strawberry blonde hair and a prodigious appetite, and a birthday one day before her daddy's, which is likely for the best since it means she's a gemini instead of a crabby cancer like her pop."
Big congrats, kids. Now get some sleep!
• Cool video podcast at "The Stack" (at Newsarama) featuring an interview with Alex Robinson, talking about his bitchin' new book Too Cool to Be Forgotten.
• Here's a nifty little strip Noah Van Sciver did, an interview he conducted with Jeffrey Brown.
• Finally, here's a sweet promo postcard Rob Goodin whipped up for his forthcoming Top Shelf comic book called, appropriately, The Man Who Loved Breasts.
22 June 2008
June 14, 2008. Email from Jeff Lemire:
"Just got back from the Schuster awards ceremony, and I won Best Canadian Writer/Artist! It was the nights "big" end of the night award and I was up against Darwyn Cooke, Brian Lee O'Malley and Julie Doucet! It is a gorgeous award, and I'll likely get some print in the local newspapers on Monday. Anyways, I thanked all of you and gave my props to Top Shelf...so way to go team! See y'all soon."
Whoo hoo!
On Lemire's Shuster Award, good pal Gary Butler (Quill & Quire, Rue Morgue) said, "A well-deserved win for a brilliant talent." And the subject header for the same email read: The Lemire the Lemerrier. Ha! Love it! Thanks, G.!
• The new Strapazin arrived in the mail. Whoo hoo!
• Alex Robinson's new Too Cool to be Forgotten scores HIGH in New York Mag's "The Approval Matrix." In the "Brilliant/Lowbrow" category there is the cover of Too Cool!!! The text says: "Alex Robinson's endearingly uplifting graphic novel Too Cool to be Forgotten." He shoots, he scores!
• Top Shelf alum Max Estes' online comic strip My Life as a Bunny is being published in Spain! Congrats, Max!
• Big props to Top Shelfers Matt Kindt, Jeff Lemire, and Christian Slade on their 2008 HARVEY AWARD NOMINATIONS!!!
SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION Super Spy, Matt Kindt
• It's no secret i love Wizard mag, and they love us right back! The newest issue (#201) has FOUR Top Shelf plugs! Page 20 had Five Questions with Robert Venditti (for The Surrogates); Matt (Super Spy) Kindt shows up in the "Future Superstars" section on page 79; Alex Robinson's new Too Cool To Be Forgotten, on page 101, is a recommended Summer Read; and it's all good words about James Kochalka's Johnny Boo Volume 1 on page 106.
13 June 2008
MoCCA kicked ass, like it always does, even though i came down with a cold, and it was as hot as sin in The City. After three nights in Montreal, living la Vida Loca with mon ami Patrick Jodoin, i stayed at Gregory Benton's swanky new studio loft on Flatbush in Brooklyn.
-Christine Norrie gave me three tiny little piece of printed ephemera that are just exquisite. They are garment tags, with subtle yellow, stamped text, and gorgeous illustrations by Christine printed in red ink. One each for bra, panties, and slip. The style reminds me of a classic line-art style circa 1965 fashion ads. (Or if memory serves, like the packaging that came with sew-your-own fashion patterns like my mom used to make.)
-Will Dinski continues to be a leader in the oft-ignored field of mini-comics, with two new books i was given: Errand Service, a re-packaged clever little ditty about the service-provider who does the minutiae of everyday life and so much more, as work for hire, and a super-mini held together by a metal fastener, called Shift. I'm going to keep singing this guy's praises until he becomes a household name, damnit all!!
-Lilli Carre gave me her exquisite new mini Dorado Park. Lilli is emerging into one of the next generation's brightest stars.
-Good friend Jose Villarrubia introduced me to two of his illustration students whose work literally boggles. Check this shit out!
Kali Ciesmier. Both do amazing work, and i'll be very surprised if i don't start seeing there work all over the place soon. Kali also handed me a delightful little mini-comics titled Paige Turner and the Midnight Curiosity, which amply displays here ability to tell a sequential narrative in pictures as well.
-On the way home (flying over the majestic Rocky Mountains) i had a chance to read How to Love, the new anthology by Israeli ink-studs, Actus. I've known all of them for upwards of a decade now, and have always been a fan, and with this latest, they continue to impress. Greg McElhatton has a review posted here at Read About Comics. This is a book you can order right here from yours truly, if your local retailer can't or won't stock it.
-Sam Henderson gave me the new Magic Whistle (Number 11), also which had me laughing out loud on the flight home. Thanks, Sam!!
-Picked up Danny Hellman's new anthology Typhon. Some great stuff can be found therein, including two strips by Gregory Benton, some nice new work by the likes of Dalton Webb, Pat Moriarity, Chris Cilla, Pshaw, Grant Reynolds, and geez, so many more. All wrapped up in a sweet cover by R. Sikoryak.
-I did get more stuff from MoCCA, but i left it in the hands of Rob Venditti, to ship back to me from Atlanta... stay tuned.
• Jeremy Eaton has a link to three and a half years of his weekly editorial cartoon, A Drawn Perspective. Great stuff!
• Top Shelf 2.0 contributor Lizz Lunney has a terrific new comic out titled I Love Dinosaurs and They Love Me.
• This is not about comics. Read on ONLY if the idea of Challenging the Militarization of US Energy Policy grabs your interest. Good stuff.
Off to Montreal to visit my friend Patrick — and also to flirt with the bevy of cute French-speaking girls — on route to New York for MoCCA. Y'all won't hear from me for at least a week (not uncommon, sadly), so i wanted to throw out my picks from the current Diamond Previews. (I think for items shipping in December.) In order of appearance:
DARK HORSE
Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein (new hardcover edition!!)
Dean Motter's Mr. X Archives. Fun old stuff. Style over substance, but beautiful all the same. Come on... early Jaime Hernandez and Seth?
Hellboy Library Edition vol. 2. Volume one is drop dead gorgeous. These are as good as it gets.
DC COMICS
-DC Universe Illustrated by Neal Adams. His shit still rocks.
-Teen Titans Archives vol. 4. Part of my Holy Trinity. Starfire was as big a crush as any "real" girls up to that point in my teens. And probably as available to Mr. Nerd.
-Y: the Last Man Deluxe Edition vol. 1. I loved the first few trades, and if the package is as tight as the new Starman Deluxe books, i am all over this.
MARVEL
Criminal #6. As always.
Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-man vol. 10. I know this is sacrilegious to many, but i'm actually a bigger fan of Romita's Spidey than Ditko. (Of course, Ditko is a god, but Romita's Mary Jane... are you KIDDING me?!!!)
Immortal Iron Fist tpb vol. 2 (The Brube, Fraction, etc.) The first volume in this series surprised me how much i enjoyed it.
BODEGA
- Dave K.'s Neverland. Almost everything Dave touches is gold. He's like the best teen drama tv show as imagined by John Porcellino.
DEVIL'S DUE
- Oh yeah!!! Jeffrey Brown's Incredible Chabge-Bots character "Balls" action figure!! I can't handle how cool this is... it actually TRANSFORMS!!
DRAWN & QUARTERLY
- Against Pain, by Ron Rege Jr. Another member of the circa mid-90s generation whose work is always worth reading.
FIRST SECOND
- Eddie Campbell's The Amazing Monsieur Leotard. Eddie makes comics. The world rejoices. 'Nuff said.
GEMSTONE
- EC Archives: Haunt of Fear vol. 1. The best reprint project going on currently, alongside Terry and the Pirates.
iDW
- Complete Dick Tracy vol. 5. Choice vintage comics. We truly are in a Golden Age of reprints.
ONI
Local hardcover edition. Brian Wood works magic on the page. And coupled with Ryan Kelly's insanely good art on this series, i've devoured every issue to date.
Love the Way You Love (Jamie Rich and Marc Ellerby). I've yet to read this, but i dig Jamie's stuff.
Sharknife vol. 2: Double Z. Corey Lewis' manic fucking madness. Over the top, ADD, and high octane.
And there's more in the book section, including a collection of Frazetta comics, a collection of Will Eisner's PS Magazine, and a series of toys of the old Rankin & Bass characters classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I showed this to Carter this last December, and he flipped his wig.
• Boo Ya! Charlito and Mr. Phil are hosting an Indie Spinner Rack party this Saturday night, ladies and gents. Yahoo! Me loves me a good party, and these cats are as cool as cucumbers.
FREE DOOR PRIZES, DJ WACKY WACK, FREE LOVE & Perhaps Mr. Phil will take his shirt off!
Swing by the ISR booth to get your Raffle ticket NO CHARGE. FREE.
OFFICIAL IZZER MOCCA PARTY
Saturday June 7th
9pm START TIME....who knows how long. BAR M-15!
• Pat Moriarity made this awesome poster for the Horror film Paper Dolls. It will be showing in Seattle for the STIFF Film Festival, Tuesday, June 10th. 8:00. Jewel Box Theater. Nice work, Pat!
• Finally, speaking of The Kid. Here are some recent snaps.
Guest blog by our man Rob Venditti, writer of the graphic novel The Surrogates:
"This past week, Chris Staros, Brett Weldele, and I were invited to visit the set of the upcoming SURROGATES movie, currently filming in Boston. It was a trip for the ages, and I left having learned a lot about what goes into the making of a big-budget film. What surprised me more than anything else was the sheer enormity of the production, which involves hundreds of cast and crewmembers, as well as multiple sets scattered around the metro area.
"I was equally surprised at how much they went out of their way to make us feel welcome. I expected us to spend the two-day visit scrambling to stay out of everyone’s way and keep our nuisance quotient at the lowest possible level, but the people we met were genuinely interested in showing us what’s in store for the film adaptation. On the first day, the location scouts took us on a tour through the various sets in downtown Worcester—it’s crazy what the set dressers are able to accomplish in a relatively short time, taking a run-down room in an abandoned building and turning it into a fully realized space. I couldn’t see for certain who the artists were, but some of the local concert posters hanging on the wall in one set smacked heavily of the Fort Thunder crowd.
"On the second day we visited the main production office in Woburn, where the production designers were bent over their drafting tables, sketching out concepts for sets and props that are yet to be built. The level of detail they’re going into is beyond reason—one of the particularly impressive props we saw was about the size of a phone booth. I stepped closer for a better look and saw a small sticker, maybe twice the size of a business card, on which were typed the user instructions, as though the prop were a real mechanism and not something created for a film set. I can’t imagine that it’ll be filmed close enough to actually read the instructions or even notice them, but they’re there anyway. That’s just one example of how carefully the designers are thinking this thing through.
"We spent a good amount of time watching the actual filming as well. We saw Bruce Willis do dialogue. We saw him do action. Even better, we saw him do the quiet moments where it’s just him and the camera as he pieces together the film’s mystery. Everything we saw only reinforced what I’ve said from the beginning—Willis is THE guy to play Greer.
"To the slater who let me work the 'sticks,' thank you. To craft services, who kept us in cookies, pizza bagels, and bottled water, thank you. To the lunch caterers—I went in expecting chicken strips and tater tots, and you gave me shrimp scampi and shepherd’s pie—thank you. To everyone who took the time to show us around, thank you. Our visit was every bit as enjoyable and informative as a school field trip, except instead of visiting the planetarium, we, you know, saw our story getting turned into a feature film.
"The question I’ve been asked more than any other over the past year is: 'Does it feel like this is really happening?' Hollywood is always in such a state of flux that it’s hard to ever know definitively where things stand. So it never really felt real—not after seeing the screenplay, or even after hearing that Bruce Willis had been cast in the lead. But when I was on set and saw the slate, on which were the words SURROGATES and beneath that DIRECTED BY JONATHAN MOSTOW, PHOTOGRAPHED BY OLIVER WOOD, that was a different story. Now it feels real."
THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 2008
6-10 PM
FLOATING WORLD COMICS
David Chelsea will appear at Floating World Comics, in Portland’s historic Chinatown district, celebrating the release of his book 24x2, published by Top Shelf Productions. 24x2 collects two 24-page stories, each created over the course of a 24-hour period!
The party will also celebrate the opening of a gallery show at Floating World, featuring the art of legendary alternative cartoonists Peter Bagge, J.R. Williams, and Mats!?. The show will run through June 30th.
David Chelsea is a Portland-based cartoonist and illustrator. His graphic novels David Chelsea in Love (1992) and Welcome to the Zone (1995) have earned him a cult following. His hybrid graphic novel / textbook Perspective! For Comic Book Artists (1997) has helped cartoonists create realistic worlds for over a decade. His illustrations for the “Modern Love” column greet readers of the New York Times every week.
But perhaps his most unique achievement is his history with the 24-hour comic book — a complete 24-page comic book story, created from start to finish in 24 hours. Since his first 24-hour comic experience in 2004, Chelsea has returned again and again to this comic-book crucible, completing his stunning TENTH 24-hour comic on April 5, 2008.
Now, Top Shelf Productions presents the cream of Chelsea’s crop: two hand-picked 24-hour comics from the reigning champion of the form.
WHO: David Chelsea, Peter Bagge, J.R. Williams, Mats!?, and the public!
WHAT: Gallery show, opening reception, book release party for David Chelsea’s 24x2
wWHEN: Thursday, June 5, 6-10PM
WHERE: Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave #101
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 241-0227
• I recently picked up one of the coolest books EVER. Hats off to editor Charlie Kochman at Abrams for spearheading a stunning collection of the brilliant old-school Wacky Packages stickers. Featuring an interview with art spiegelman, who worked on these waaaaay back in the day, and an afterword by contributing artist Jay Lynch, this tight little tome showcases every single Wacky Packages bubblegum card of Series 1-7 back in the early 70s.
Holy crap, this is a seriously fun blast from the past. Highly recommended!!!
• Finally, i'm leaving for Montreal in just a few days (on route to MoCCA in New York City)... i'm hoping to post a list of items i'll be seeking out from the current Diamond Previews before i leave. There is a freaking boatload of great stuff coming out this Summer!
29 May 2008
Mike Dawson's long-awaited 300-page graphic novel Freddie and Me is finally out. (Bloomsbury.) I was witness to early stages of this book, and i can't wait to read the entire thing.
• More killer Michael Golden art.
From the press release:
Philadelphia -- In celebration of the release of the new mini-series, "Demon's Regret," it's just been announced that a limited edition exclusive print will be offered at this years Wizard World Philly. Limited to only 150 copies on linen stock, signed and numbered! What's even more exciting is that the art is by non-other than cover artist Michael Golden, who will be making his first appearance at WWP!
• Nick Parker, editor of University of Alabama's Black Warrior Review is seeking submissions for robot-themed pieces anywhere between 4 and 8 pages long. "They do not have to be a sequential narrative. That is to say, we have published, and will again publish, single frames that have a story within them. Our magazine is a 6" x 9" book, and printed space on art pages is about 5" x 8". We are looking for black and white (and gray, naturally) submissions. For this feature we are looking for one, possibly two comics to go along with our other pieces, which includes art, poetry, nonfiction and fiction.
"As far as page rates go, we are a non-profit, so our payment to contributors is based upon an honorarium we get each year. As such, it is hard to nail down a firm number but, based upon years past and our increasing revenue, I would estimate that each contributor will get between $100 and $200. So, I would loosely peg the page rate at about $25 per page, with a limit of 8 pages.
"The magazine can be checked out here. Recent art and comic contributions have come from Maya Hayuk, Howie Tsui, Josh Frankel, and Jim Woodring."
I haven't heard from Staros in a few days, and was wondering where he was. Then i got an email informing me that he was on the set of The Surrogates film today, while authors Rob Venditti and Brett Weldele were off doing their interviews for the supplemental dvd extras. I am a little green right now, i must admit.
• PRESS RELEASE:
The Portland Funbook #3 needs YOU to make an awesome drawing or an awesome song. #3 will bring more music and more art than your eyeballs and earballs can handle! Be it obvious or obscure, we need submissions from all about Portland. This time the book will be an oversized 11"×17", the record 10", the glory immeasurable. And as with #1 and #2 all profits from the sale and release party will go to charity. The 3rd Portland Funbook will be the definitive regional activity/coloring book for next thousand years. Live your kindergarden dream!
If you don't know about The Portland Funbook you can download pdfs and music here.
• Gregory Benton sent me a couple watercolors, done on holiday recently. Thanks, G.
• Jeffrey Brown. A convention sketch for Joe Keatinge (Image Comics) at Emerald City Con. (Photo by Carlos Hernandez Fisher.) Then a Bighead/Batman commission. Cool. Cool. Cool.
I'm off to the beach for the weekend. Fingers crossed for sunshine.
The world of comics lost a legendary champion today, when news broke that Rory Root died. I learned via Warren Ellis' email newsletter, who himself learned from Ed Brubaker. I'm pretty sucky at eulogies, but i can tell you that Rory was one of the coolest guys i've ever known in this biz, and his store Comic Relief has been one of the top five stores in North America for as long as i've been reading them.
Rory, i love you man and i'll miss you. Rest in peace, buddy.
Gee whiz, between Chris and myself, we've been representing Top Shelf across the country and around the world. First, in early April our ATL contingent did the FLUKE show in Athens, GA. The very next weekend Chris was pimping TSP at the mammoth New York Con. The week after that, Leigh and myself set up at Stumptown here in Portland. (Aided and abetted by new guy on the block Tim Sievert.) Chris then set sail for a comics festival in Sweden, got home, had one day off to check his 2,326 emails, then turned back around and right back across The Pond for the Bristol Con in England. At the same time, Leigh and myself were in Seattle for the Emerald City Con, along with Matt Kindt, Jeffrey Brown, and Andy Runton. Meanwhile, Chris left this morning to attend Editor's Day at SCAD (Savanna College of Art and Design).
Whew!!! Book Expo is in a week and a half (Staros will be flying solo for that one), then we'll be representing in force at MoCCA in two and a half weeks.
• So, yeah, Emerald City was great this year... big ups to Jim D. for pulling out all the stops, and making sure that the indy set wasn't entirely overshadowed by Will (STTNG) Wheaton, Apollo (BSG) Adama, three contestants from Stan Lee's So You Think You Want to be a Super-Hero?, and more big-name mainstream artists than you can shake a stick at. For the record, Will (Wesley Crusher) Wheaton is one helluva nice guy.
I scored some great loot. While i'm not a big back-issue bin flipper, i do like to check the magazine boxes and scored a great deal on three really old back issues of Comics Feature, two old issues of The Comics Journal, the very first issue of Amazing Heroes, and a sweet Wally Wood Treasury, all for a mere $20.
Fantagraphics got a big-ass pile of change from me (well, Eric did gimme a sweet discount!), since they had a plethora of amazing new books, including the new issue of The Comics Journal (Peanuts on the cover), Dash Shaw's MAMMOTH new tome Bottomless Belly Button, the revised and much better designed paperback edition of Patrick Rosenkranz's Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, Craig Yoe's new ARF!, and an incredibly gorgeous new volume of Jules Feiffer strips called The Explainers. Good lord, these cats never take a break.
• How cool is THIS!
Small Press Spotlight on Andy Hartzell (Fox Bunny Funny) at the Cartoon Art Museum. Exhibition runs May 10 – August 10, 2008.
• Rising start Will Dinski is interviewed by Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter. I LOVE Will's comics. Seriously, this guy is the shit. We'll be seeing more of his work in the future. Check out his blog, baby! His recent book Beautiful, Cool, and Irreplaceable (picture below) is awesome! Buy it!
05 May 2008
ink-stud J.R. Williams has a wild as heck, day-glo web-comic up on his Flickr site called Felyna. Good, old-fashioned comics goodness.
Here's a pic of J.R. and table-mate Jim Blanchard at Stumptown last weekend. (Lifted from said Flickr site.)
This is the piece i bought from him at the show... Metamorpho, baby!!
• Tender Loving Empire, the little boutique shop-that-could is celebrating their 1st Birthday!! And they're throwing a bash on May 11 at Berbatis, so if y'all aren't up in Seattle for the Emerald City Con, you should come out and rock the house. They also have a bitchin' new comic anthology out called Shitbeams on the Loose.
I really dig these kids at Tender Loving Empire, and their taste as a record label, screenprint shop, t-shirt maker, publisher is astounding.
• VERY lean month (of good stuff, that is) in Diamond Previews this month. The one book i'd like to point out is the new Meathaus S.O.S. anthology on page 328 of Previews. Farel Dalrymple had advance copies of this at Stumptown, and it's fucking gorgeous. Indy anthology lovers... TAKE NOTE!!
• This year the Eisner Awards are allowing On-Line Voting, and the ballots just went live. The registration process only took about a minute, and the voting another 2 or 3.
Just go to: www.eisnervote.com and follow the instructions. And go ahead and do it now, so you don't forget (though the deadline is June 13th).
And in case you're interested, we (Top Shelf!) got 3 nominations this year:
2008 Eisner Award Nominees:
Best Graphic Album-New: Essex County, vols. 1-2: Tales from the Farm/Ghost Stories, by Jeff Lemire
Best Graphic Album-Reprint: Super Spy, by Matt Kindt
Best Writer/Artist: Jeff Lemire, Essex County: Tales from the Farm/Ghost Stories
• Andy Runton made this fine Owly piece promoting this coming weekend's Emerald City Con up in Seattle. The guest list this year is swell, including our own afore-mentioned Andy Runton, as well as Jeffrey Brown and Matt Kindt. Come on out and say hello.
Stumptown is come and gone once again, and continues to improve every year out. Kudos to Indigo, Cosmic Monkey, and the entire amazing force that organizes this show, which grows in stature each time out. The vibe was terrific and the venue fabulous.
Tim Sievert made it out from Minneapolis to represent at the Top Shelf table, while Liz Prince came out from Boston to promote her new Top Shelf book Delayed Replays. She had her own table and was selling some nifty new t-shirts. Hometown boy David Chelsea had his own table as well, and was pimping his hot-off-the-presses 24 x 2, which collects two of his ten 24-Comics efforts.
My old pal Garret Izumi was our neighbor (along with Scott Mills), and took these snaps. (This one at the table has Timothy on the left and me on the right.)
This one outside my favorite restaurant ever, Taqueria Nueve. Not only is the food incredible, but they make the best margarita in the cosmos. Better even than my own! (Gasp!)
The Saturday night event at Cosmic Monkey was so freaking crowded, i literally couldn't make it ten feet into the large cavernous space. Hot, sweaty, and surrounded by comics. So i grabbed Timothy, and we headed to the Candlelight Room up by PSU downtown, and we danced our asses off to my new favorite local band, The Strangetones.
These cats rock so hard i can't stand it. Rootsy, roadhouse blues, and world-class musicians. Their act is tight as hell, Suburban Slim kicks out the jams like there's no tomorrow, and if you catch them on a good night, they might have the mondo-sexy Volcano Vixens doing their GoGo grooves alongside the band.
Flush with dough from the convention floor, i picked up their last two cds and i'm happy to report that they rock just as hard. Please, if you dig smokin' blues, listen to the samples on the website, and if you dig what you hear, pick up one or both of their recent albums, Crime-A-Billy and We're On Our Way.
• Ganges #2 is out, and while it lacks the emotional charge that author Kevin Huizenga's comics usually do, it's still a formidable comic, and as per usual, a triumph of formalism and comics mastery. The titular hero works at a dot.com company a decade ago, and he and his office drones addictively play violent user-to-user video games after hours. The set-up to the story is one of the most visually arresting sequences i've ever seen in comics, being a sort of psycho-spiritual video game battle. Again, i miss the usual human pathos that Kevin can bring to the plate, but this issue, like most of his work, sticks in my brain-pan long after i've finished it.
• Here's some teaser art for Jeff Lemire's forthcoming original graphic novel with Vertigo.
As described to me by Jeff:
Large Mouth, a tiny, isolated northern fishing town, didn’t see much excitement. That is until an odd Stranger, wrapped completely in bandages, and wearing strange goggles, arrives in the sleepy town one day, taking up residence in the local motel.
Driven into a curious frenzy by the mysterious visitor, the townsfolk quickly learn the tragic story of his past, and of the terrible accident that left him horribly dis-figured and alone.
Eventually, Large Mouth welcomes the Stranger as one of their own, giving him the fresh start he never thought possible. But, as his story starts to unravel, they begin to question whether his bandages may hide more than just scars.
• From the Hickee Crew, superb artist Scott Campbell writes about upcoming events:
CUTE HUNTER. (Solo Show) Secret Headquarters in LA. Saturday, May 3rd. 8-11pm (Runs through May 29th)
ONE TO GROW ON (Group Show) Gallery 1988 in LA. May 20 – June 1st. Opening reception May 20th.
The Detroit paper Metro Times wrote an article about him, titled Manifest Cuteness, written by mini-comics legend Sean Bieri.
20 April 2008
If you're attending the New York Comic Con this weekend, Al "Mad Fold-In" Jaffee will be on the Arf book panel on Sunday, Room IE03 at 3:00. Here's hoping for a good turnout for Al, who at 87 years young is rarely at cons. Also, a reminder that Craig will be signing the few limited number of the new "Arf" book, Comic Arf at the Fantagraphics booth. They're having a few advance copies flown in from China and the signing will be Sat. 11-1, Sun. 1-2:45. Besides Jaffee, Comic Arf has special art done for the book by R. Crumb, Jules Feiffer, Patrick McDonnell, Art Speigelman, Bil Keane, etc
Here's affable Al Jaffee:
• And if you're in Portland next weekend for the Stumptown Comics Fest, here's some haps you might want to check out, courtesy of Dylan Williams from Sparkplug.
16 April 2008
James Kochalka is expanding his American Elfarchives in a big way. 2008 marks the 10th Anniversary of James' massive daily diary comic strip undertaking! And while, yes, i'm the publisher of this work, believe me when i tell you, this is some of the most profound comics work anywhere.
• David Chelsea's most recent 24-Hour comic, titled "Now Open the Box" (and which we'll be posting right here on our revamped webcomics section in a couple weeks or so), is based on a New York Timescolumn for which he provided an illustration, by "Modern Love" author Lori Jakiela.
• Finished reading Comic Foundry #2. (The Spring 2008 issue.) Boy i really really dig this mag. I hope their efforts to gain mainstream newsstand acceptance succeed. The feature interview with Matt Fraction was pretty good. In fact, it made me go back and start over reading the first Iron Fist trade paperback that i'd picked up on good buzz, and honestly couldn't get into. (See review below.)
I do like the staccato nature of the contents — understanding the limited attention span of most Americans — but i'd like to see at least a couple more meatier features; whether that be interviews, series overviews, or what have you.
• Sat down then and read the new Immortal Iron Fist tpb mentioned above, titled "The Last Iron Fist Story." First, what i didn't like AT ALL, and the reason i couldn't get into it on the first attempt; Fractions use of voice-over narrative is not just not good, it's horrible. Especially the way that he starts a sentence at the top of one page, and doesn't finish it until 2 pages later or more. Of course, he's not as bad as Jeff Loeb, who uses this cliched narrative device to horrible affect, but really, this is an old comics convention that i think for the most part has served it's purpose, and — except when truly important to the story at hand — should be left alone. (I wonder if this is part of the advice that Ed Brubaker imparted to Matt, as alluded to in the aforementioned Comic Foundry interview.)
That said, i dove in and suffered through the narration, and i can happily say i'm glad i gave this book a second chance, Because overall it kicks some serious ass. The story itself rocks, and utilizes flashbacks to good effect, while the dialog is snappy and fun. I don't know enough of the Iron Fist backstory to know if this is a major ret-con, but it read so clearly that i didn't care.
And the art by one David Aja is simply amazing. Fluid and stylistic, with clear storytelling (something so many of today's HOT artists are clueless about — and shame on their editors for not correcting this), this is one relative newcomer that i'll totally be keeping my eye on. I read recently that a new writer/artist team is taking over on this book soon; i can only hope that Matt, Ed, and David have a chance to wrap up their storyline with a definitive conclusion. (And that the whole run eventually winds up in one of the bitchin' oversized hardcovers Marvel has been doing with popular books.)
• This sounds cool as heck! I wish i was in Seattle this Thursday.
Thursday evening at 7:00 PM, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery’s resident curator Larry Reid will speak at the Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Avenue in Seattle. Reid will present a slide lecture on the topic “WEIRDOS: Seattle’s Alternative Comics Culture in the Context of R. Crumb’s Underground.” If you have yet to see the phenomenal Crumb exhibition at the Frye, this represents one of the last opportunities to view this comprehensive collection and explore Crumb’s considerable influence on comics in the Northwest. Admission is free. Reid assures us that you’ll get your money’s worth. More info at 206.622.9250.
• Finally, here's James Kochalka's brand new cover art for a repriint of his kid's book Pinky & Stinky.
In this case... HELL YEAH! Renee French has jumped into the blogosphere. Thus far it's almost exclusively art. And that's o.k., since her work is truly sublime.
longtime pal Steve Ryan sent me a link to a pretty damn disturbing article at Animation World, about a news item that could adversely affect everyone in the comics community. At stake is a piece of pending legislation before Congress about items determined to be “Orphaned Works.”
From the article:
"An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission."
This debate has even far more ramifications for our industry than the “Net Neutrality” from a couple years ago, except that unlike that situation, there is little affect this would have on civilians, and so there’ll probably be little fanfare. Yet one more case of the system working against the cause of the little people, in support of the powerful. Keep your eyes peeled for when this proposed legislation hits the public, true believers, and contact your congressfolks in protest.
• I’ve been a busy little bee lately, as the Top Shelf convention season brings my production cycle into full swing. Timothy Sievert’s That Salty Air has arrived — our first new book of the season — and it's a beauty.
James Kochalka’s Johnny Boo is at the printer in China. Our new Seasonal Sampler for 2008 is ready to roll. Liz’ Prince’s collection of her strips Delayed Replays is at our printer in Montreal. Alex Robinson’sToo Cool To Be Forgotten is also in China on press. Corey Barba’s YAM is almost ready to be put to bed. Nate Powell’s insanely beautiful new book Swallow Me Whole, is almost wrapped up, and my favorite Top Shelf book in years, Veeps, by Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger, is getting it’s final touches done by production guru Chris Ross.
Here's a couple developmental sketches by Nate Powell, for the back cover of Swallow Me Whole.
The April issue of Diamond Previews came out last week, and i wanted to point out a few cool books i'll be picking up. There's no Marvel or DC here, but that doesn't mean i won't be picking some spandex books up — just that they don't need a fraction as much support as these folks do. So pester your local retailer to order these for you, and one (at least) for the rack. If they won't budge, then go strait to the source.
Page 202: Kyle Baker's Nat Turner, by (of course) Kyle Baker. (The publisher is Abrams, i think.) One of the few cartoonists who seems to have a magic touch... i can't think of a single book he's done in a decade that i didn't love. One of the most effective storytellers in comics, his work is not to be missed.
Page 203: Superior Showcase #3, from AdHouse Books. Featuring new work by Jim Rugg (and supposedly his writing partner Brian Maruca, who i think is Jim's alter-ego), Dustin Harbin, and Laura Park. Project Superior is an ideal salve for the conflicted "indy" comics fans who can't let go of their lifelong super-hero proclivities.
Page 232: Freddie & Me, by Mike Dawson. Published by Bloomsbury. I've been witness to this book in progress for years, and i'm chompin' at the bit to read it in its entirety. Mike can draw like a mo-fo, and it's great to see him realize his first full-length graphic novel, after years of paying his dues with numerous mini-comics and unfinished comics.
Page 287: A Fantagraphics Feast! Man of Rock: The Biography of Joe Kubert, by Bill Schelly. The Troublemakers, a new hardcover graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez. And Uptight #3, by Jordan Crane. For dessert, the Comics Journal #291, featuring an interview with Tim Sale. Even though they have a pretty crappy website, they're still the most important publisher in comics. (Don't tell Staros i said that though...)
Page 291: Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, by Jessica Able and Matt Madden. Published by First Second. A treatise on the form, by two of our medium's foremost formalists, published by one of the shining new stars in the industry's firmament. You can't lose!
Page 304: Scorchy Smith, by Noel Sickles, published by iDW. Editor Dean Mullaney continues his epic fucking cool series of classic reprints with the MUCH anticipated collection of the complete Sickles strip Scorchy Smith, as well as a plethora of dvd-style extras. Whoo hoo... can't wait to this puppy in my hands.
• THIS WEEKEND!! The 24-Comic Challenge!
Here's a photo set from an old challenge at Chelsea's pad.
Here are David's storyboards for the short promo made for the event this weekend.
• Finished reading Mark Evanier's coffee table monograph of the magnificent Jack Kirby, appropriately titled KIRBY: King of Comics! As one of the world's leading Kirby biographers and personal friend of The King, it reads fine, and is accompanied by loads of great oversized art, all wrapped up with quite tasty book design. I will admit however, i was expecting a meatier history of the man. I thought for sure i'd be reading an in-depth biography, containing many gems about Kirby's life i've never heard before. Alas, there's absolutely nothing here that i haven't read in Comic Book Artist, the Comics Journal, the Kirby Collector, or any number of various magazine articles and/or interviews.
That said, it's still a kick-ass tome, and i highly recommend it. Worthy of any Kirby junky, but particularly useful too for neophytes to the Kirby phenomenon.
From the mouth of King Faraday, these words nicely sum up the heart behind my favorite super-hero comic i've read in well over a decade. That's right, i finally spent a few nights riveted by the masterful ideas and storytelling behind Darwyn Cooke's epic New Frontier. I'd mentioned in a previous post how beautiful the "absolute" edition of this book was, and i'm happy to report that it reads as good as it looks.
Ostensibly a retelling of the formation of DC's proto super-group The Justice League of America, this book does all that and so much more. (A scathing indictment of current neo-con philosophy and the politics of fear-mongering, for example.)
The plot comes straight out of the Silver Age era from which it sprang... a mysterious alien life form in the guise of a sentient island? Sounds hokey as hell, and well, it is. And that's part of the charm. But what really knocked my socks off was the set-up and execution. Cooke's adventure spans the exact same years that these Silver Age heros developed in continuity, from the post-war mid-forties, into the cold-war and the sixties, and ends at the "birth" of the Justice League.
I've always been more of a Marvel Zombie — though i've got my share of DC spandex in my library — but New Frontier to my mind sets a new bar for meta-continuity narratives, and has leapt to the front of the line for me as THE definitive DC super-hero comic.
Ah geez, and i haven't even mentioned Cooke's art. This is the shit, friends. Some may not have an appreciation for this "animated" style as made popular by the likes of Bruce Timm (though i think it's tops), but one cannot argue that Cooke's storytelling — his ability to tell the story from panel-to-panel and page-to-page — is literally as good as it gets.
And the appendix in the "absolute" edition is phenomenal as well.
Wikipedia has a nice entry on this, and is chock full of tasty links.
Sorry with all the gushing here... i'm just floored by this baby. In fact, so much so i did some googling on Cooke, and realized long after the fact, that he was one of the few lucky ones to have scored an issue of DCs short-lived Solo series. CRAP!! This thing came and went so fast i didn't even know it existed. Of course, i can't find a single copy in all of Portland, or online at Mile High... ARGGHH! I'll pony up a hardcover edition of From Hell for anyone who wants to trade this rare comic with me!!
• Then last night, i hung out with the Joe, James, and Randy from Oni and watched the dvd treatment of the same. It was really enjoyable, i'll say that, but i can't image how good it would be for someone who hasn't already read the graphic novel. Certainly better that most crappy Marvel animated stuff, with some nice animation and voice work, though i'd say it's a case of a movie that can't possibly live up to the standards of the book.
• Also read a REALLY fun comic from Image called Fantastic Comics. Edited by Joe Keatinge, this purports to be a "Next-Issue" concept series, that continues the adventures of copyright free action heroes from long-forgotten comics of the Golden Age. I truly couldn't say if this is true, but no matter, the results are a blast. The whole thing is a romp; from the kick-ass cover by Erik Larsen, and contributions by Joe Casey, Bill Sienkiewicz, Tom Yeates, Andy Kuhn, Tom Scioli, Jim Rugg, Mike Allred, and more.
More, please.
• Finally, RARE are the books i receive in the mail that are ready for Prime Time in idea and execution. Well, this is exactly what i received in my po box, with a graphic novel by Ed Laroche called Almighty. A post-apocalyptic noir crime drama, with art reminiscent of Edwardo Risso, Ed is self-publishing this intense graphic novel series. Very recommended.
... i have no idea who Pixeloo even is (the blog is anonymous), but this photo will probably spread through the blogosphere like wildfire, and either make her/him rich or else get them sued. Disturbing as f*ck and brilliant!
• Meanwhile, i pulled Alec Longstreth's Phase 7 #11 out of my to-read pile. This issue contains the second part of his autobiographical story chronicling his passion for comics, and his desire to become a cartoonist. Painfully honest and brimming with unbridled enthusiasm, this comic book is prescribed for aspiring creators in any medium. Also, it's great to see that Alex's superhuman amounts of sweat equity in his effort is paying a nice dividend. His early cartooning from just a few short years ago did not start out entirely naturalistic, and seemed forced; but here one can see him really coming into his won, showing marked growth and developing an assured grasp of the form.
16 March 2008
• Digging into my to-read pile, i pulled out some absolute gems. (I'm all for reading critical reviews, but as limited as my time is, i'd rather be a booster for the good stuff... so sue me.)
So i met ink-slinger Shannon Gerard at TCAF (Toronto) this last Summer, and picked up her three issue run of a comic book called Hung. Number one was pretty good, but it seemed fairly developmental; maybe unsure of what it wanted to be.
But by issues 2 & 3 Shannon had developed considerably, and found a style that in my humble opinion is sublime. These two issues are powerful, touching, and painfully human. The photorealistic pencil art is terrific, and formally, she understands how to use a "comics" page to wonderful affect.
These comics come VERY highly recommended, and can be found at Shannon's website, which is a marvel of tasteful design in and of itself.
Oooh, Shannon just responded to my email to her, with this: "...It's so great when someone who knows what he is talking about likes my work!
"And it is always meaningful to me when people connect with the human part of the stories. It's really amazing how many people end up telling me their own stories in return. Sigh.
"Yeah, my goodness but I am embarrassed by Hung 1 now, but I think that is a good thing. Better than never evolving. I have a couple hundred copies of that book that I didn't know what to do with, so I have started screenprinting another story over top of them. It's about older relationships-- some early loves that came along which I just wasn't ready for and blew it-- well the early drawings seemed like a good metaphor for that. And piling up two layers of drawings and writing is working out pretty nicely. Images attached.
"By September I am really hoping to bind the three comics together with the new overprinted #1 serving as a #4. I'll also include some interstitial stories and a nifty hand printed cover and sell the lot as a paperback in a limited edition."
• Bryan Lee O'Malley is a comics god. No, really. Scott Pilgrim #4 kicked my ass, and this is possible one of the greatest comic book series of all time. O'Malley makes an old fart like me (42 years old) not just enjoy & understand a comics narrative using extremely youthful themes and references, but he makes me feel welcome to the party as well. This is serious hard to pull off. Man, i look at "youth" culture today, and for the most part, i just don't give a shit. But in Scott Pilgrim, he taps into universal ideas and human experiences, all the while spinning the craziest yarn. I know there's a lot of comics elite who look down on this comic, and they can all kiss my ass.
Published by my sometimes pals at Oni Press. (Sometimes because they're near-impossible to reach.)
• Hate Annual #7 made its way into my hands from The Pile. Bagge just keeps aging oh so well. I love how Buddy and crew are aging. Besides being just fucking funny as hell and true to character, there's a naturalism at work in the development of the family. I'm looking forward to watching wee Harold grow up, big time! Hate is published by — duh... Fantagraphics.
• What is groovy as heck. Beatnik banter. Sexy teen superheroes. Double entendres and erotic visual cues. An patently absurd lot, but remains charming and fun. John F. Kennedy. Alien worlds with pop-art deco on Dali-painted architecture. Fabulous bad-guy mods. Shapeshifters, and an anti-war theme.
Hint: It's written by DC legend Bob Haney. (In fact, i think this was his last published work, but i could be wrong.) Pencils by Jay (Sin) Stevens and inks by Mike (Madman) Allred. And for the icing on the cake, a sweet Nick Cardy cover for dessert.
Why, the Teen Titans Lost Annual of course! Loved this!! Love it love it love it!
• On the lit front, i've also just finished the first novel i've read since last Summer. Willy Vlautin, lead singer and songwriter for the incredible band Richmond Fontaine, delivers a devastating portrait of a young woman, trying to escape her past, and reinvent herself in his second novel Northline. It's not a new story. What Willy brings to the table though is a gut-wrenching authenticity and a straight forward writing style that gets under the skin. His last book, The Motel Life had a story and characters that to this day stay with me, and Allison from Northline will likely do the same.
The edition have is from his British publisher Faber & Faber, and again, as with The Motel Life, feature superb production and great art from Nate Beaty.The U.S. edition from Harper Perennial is slated for a May release, and also sports of pretty cool cover.
• Here's a nifty how-to page by Corey Barba. His new YAM book has almost been put to bed, and will head to the printer shortly.
• Oh, and this sounds awesome! I've been wanting to visit Minneapolis for forever and a day. One of these days...
“THE FUN NEVER STOPS!” WITH DREW FRIEDMAN:
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKSTORE & GALLERY IN SEATTLE, OPENING MARCH 27.
“Drew Friedman isn't just a brilliant artist. He takes you to a place. He takes you back in time. He makes you smell the stale cigarettes and cold brisket and you say thank you for the pleasure.” — Sarah Silverman
Drew Friedman is among the most notorious illustrators and cartoonists in America. According to Entertainment Weekly, “He holds a marvelously warped lens up to crusty politicians and debauched celebrities. A good-natured misanthrope with an obsessive style and a sardonic tongue, Drew Friedman is one of the country’s sharper political artists.” Freidman will appear in Seattle for the first time at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery for a book signing and exhibition of his original artwork on Thursday, March 27 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM.
“The Fun Never Stops!” exhibition features 17 portraits meticulously rendered in Friedman’s singular style. Included are political figures such as “McCain as Popeye,” “John Kerry’s Inauguration,” and “Really Rich Rudy” as well as pop culture icons like Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, and Alfred E. Newman. In addition, Fantagraphics Books produced a limited edition silkscreen print featuring George W. Bush as Slim Pickens in the apocalyptic finale to “Dr. Strangelove.” Friedman’s portraits are alternately savage satires or reverential renderings – and frequently both, as in his series of “Old Jewish Comedians,” recently published in two volumes by Fantagraphics Books.
Friedman’s illustrious career has included comics work published in Art Spiegelman’s RAW, R. Crumb’s Weirdo and MAD Magazine, and frequent illustrations in National Lampoon, the New York Times, the New York Observer, among countless other publications. He was the recipient of the 2001 Rueben Award for newspaper illustration. Friedman’s work has been collected by Seattle’s Fantagraphics Books in The Fun Never Stops!: An Anthology of Comic Art 1991 – 2006, Old Jewish Comedians, MORE Old Jewish Comedians, and Warts and All.
Opening Reception and Book signing
Thursday, March 27, 5:00 – 8:00 PM
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.)
Seattle, WA 206.658.0110
I can smell it outside as the plum trees on my street flood my olfactory senses. Oh baby, i can't wait for some warm weather again.
• Big ups to Pat Moriarity, who just recently won a couple Cartoonist Northwest "TOONIE" awards. I've been a longtime fan of Pat's bigfoot stylings. In fact, produced an amazing wraparound cover for the very first perfect bound book i ever published, Top Shelf #5.
Pat writes, "Unbelievably, I WON, in the category of illustration, and then later that night the big one, the coveted GOLDEN TOONIE, reserved for giants like Berkeley Breathed, Lynne Johnston, Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring.
"I believe that all cartoonists crave affirmation, especially from their peers, and I'm no different. So if you are a cartoonist who happened to vote for me, thanks."
• Here's Jeffrey Brown's killer flyer for the upcoming Emerald City Con in Seattle.
And speaking of Jeffrey Brown, here's a design he made for the character Microwave, from the series of Incredible Change-Bots toys coming out from Devil's Due.
And finally, some sketchbook pages from Jeffrey's Sulk series, which start hitting stores the Fall.
page of deciding how to draw the character ‘rabasaku’
page of random sketches getting into the spirit of the book
early cover idea
early sketches for the character ‘eldark’
adjusted script for last part of book.(note: I erased the script lines for the section of pages showing how the fight ends...)
early character design ideas
reference page for mixed martial arts moves and positions
early character design ideas
• Some Renee French tasty goodness. First, a random image that showed up in my inbox. No explanation given. None needed. Wow.
And here is Renee's first draft of the Soap Lady reprint we'll be releasing early in 2009!
• Ian Lynam (who laid out the Peanuts Tribute section in Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions, and is the designer on the forthcoming Top Shelf art book by Bwana Spoons, titled Welcome to Forest Island), has been working on a coffee table art book, titled Parallel Strokes, for six years. It's now available, and comes highly recommended. Ian is a world-class designer, as well as one of the brightest intellects on art, typography and design i've ever had the pleasure to know.
"Parallel Strokes is a collection of interviews with twenty-plus contemporary typeface designers, graffiti writers, and lettering artists around the world. The book is introduced with a comprehensive essay charting the history of graffiti, its relation to type design, and how the two practices relate in the wider context of lettering.
"Interviews within include conversations with pan-European type design collective Underware, Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi, American graffiti writer and fine artist Barry McGee/Twist, German graffiti writers Daim and Seak, American lettering artist, graphic designer and design educator Ed Fella, among others. Parallel Strokes is an enquiry into the history, context, and development of lettering today, both culturally approved and illicit."
• LOCALS ONLY! If you're in Portland tomorrow nighth (Thursday), check these out! Lots of great events.
• 11:11 Make a Wish: A Clock Exhibition (Via Andrice Arp.)
First Thursday, March 6, 6:00 p.m. All clocks will be working, unless they are broken.
There will be clocks by: Andrice Arp, Scott Campbell, Sean Christensen, Chris Cilla, Chowchessna, Jo Dery, Eatcho, Sara Edward-Corbett, Theo Ellsworth, Susie Ghahremani, Jason Graham, Levon Jihanian, Aidan Koch, James McShane, Emily Nilsson, Jennifer Parks, Robert Pellicer, Scrappers, Cin Shepherd, Lance Simmons, Brad Simon, Zack Soto, Brad Strain, Daria Tessler, Alisha Wessler, David Youngblood, and Daniel Zvereff.
• MEANWHILE...: An Exhibition of Comic Book Art, featuring artists from the Stumptown Comics Fest (Via Garret Izumi)
(Art by Larry Marder)
First Thursday, March 6, 6:00 p.m.
PCPA and the Sequential Art Gallery present MEANWHILE...: An Exhibition of Comic Book Art, featuring artists from the Stumptown Comics Fest, a collection of comic book pages, covers and crossover art. Featuring artwork by Ryan Alexander-Tanner, Jon Ascher, Matthew Clark, Paul Guinan, Seamus Heffernan, Garret Izumi, Indigo Kelleigh, Carolyn Main, Kip Manley, Jenn Manley Lee, Larry Marder, Dylan Meconis, Erika Moen, Bill Mudron, Sarah Oleksyk, Jesse Reklaw, Craig Thompson, Jim Valentino and John C. Worsley.
The ArtBar and Bistro inside the Antoinette Hatfield Hall. 1111 SW Broadway at Main St. Portland, OR.
• Mr. T Group Theme Show. (Via Jennifer "Juanita" Kenworth)
First Thursday, March 6, 6:00 p.m. at Moshi Moshi.
A lot of great people are contributing pieces and a portion of the proceeds will go the Opal Creek Scholarship fund for Buckman Elementary School. This is so some kids that may not otherwise be able to afford it can go on a great field trip to Opal Creek and have a great time while learning something worthwhile.
The new Diamond Previews (March, 2008) is out, and i beseech you all to turn your attention to page 203. Under the AdHouse Books banner, please note the title Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by one Josh Cotter. Twisted as a mo-fo, Cotter's comics get under your skin, in the best way. This is a hardcover priced at a mere $20. BUY THIS BOOK. Advance order it from your favorite local retailer. If they can't or won't, then go to the AdHouse website to fulfill your jones.
• In the better-late-than-never department, i finally tore myself away from Season Three of Deadwood, and dipped into the ever-growing pile of comics on my office coffee-table, and read Papercutter #5 & 6, from Tugboat Press. Greg Means continues his great anthology in fine fine form.
Issue Five sports a sweet cover by the new Kaz (Strzepek), who also leads off in between the covers, with a B-side from his Mourning Star saga. Next up, a tasty slice of pure Liz Prince goodness. Then Bwana Spoons wraps up with a zany strip with an appearance by the heavy metal studs in the band Soft Crusher including Steven the Bat on smashing thunder on the drums. (Images below are different color ways for Bwana's super kick-ass Steven the Bat vinyl.)
Issue Six sports a terrific cover by the always-improving Alec Longstreth. His lead off strip, "Summer Stock," is i think his best work to date. Ken Dahl (come on, is "Ken Doll" his real name?) throws down with another stellar performance. (His Monsters comic book is one of t he most disturbing yet riveting comics i've read in years.) Finally, Julia (Fart Party) Wertz and Laura Park provide a sweet coming-of-age story called "Public Hair." Both of the crazy chicas have bucketloads of talent.
As with all issues of Papercutter, the inside covers feature sublime artwork by our very own webmaster Nate Beaty.
I think one could safely make the argument that Papercutter is the vanguard of indy comics, and that across the board, we'll be seeing lots more of every single contributing artist involved.
Greg Means, you are my hero.
• Jeremy Tinder has been a busy lad lately. Besides featuring little ol' me a guest in one of his classes (via my first video-conference interview), he's got a solo show up at Rotofugi, and interview at The New Yinzer, and a boss painting in the recent Stan Lee Tribute show.
• Picked up Kyle Baker's new The Bakers graphic novel, "Babies & Kittens, and as per usual, does not disappoint. Baker is one of the very rare cartoonists who's entire (creator-owned) oeuvre to date is entirely and completely recommended. Maybe i'm a little biased, being the dad of a 3-year old boy, but these continuing adventures of the Baker Family on one hand, nail the nuances of parenting, while at the same time regaling over-the-top tales that no parent could imagine in their wildest nightmare — a classic Looney Tunes madcap day-in-the-life. Brilliant!
Ezra Clayton Daniles has taken his infamous Comics Art Battle ONLINE!!!
These epic events have always been a hoot live and in the flesh, and the online version kick ass too. Whoo hoo!
•Â Here's the most recent Diamond Previews ad for Top Shelf. After our Winter hiatus, we're starting to get some real nifty books off to the printer. This month, Liz Prince's sophomore effort, Delayed Replays, and David Chelsea's 24x2, which collects two of his NINE 24-Hour comics. They're all very excellent, and hopefully sales on this book will be enough to do more.
• Alan David Doane has an excellent interview with Robert Scott, from Comickazi Comics in San Diego, at Comic Book Galaxy. Robert is also the head honcho at the CBIA (Comic Book Industry Alliance). The interview provides another considered response to the current debate on pre-selling comics at conventions.
I have an idea about this, that i think (i hope) might work for everybody, but first, one more time i have to take umbrage with one of Robert's comments from the interview.
Scott says, "It really shouldn't be that hard to understand that if they are already struggling so much selling this work in the DM, that pre-selling into that market is going to capture sales that would've been made in DM shops but unfortunately most publishers seem to feel that their need trumps everything and everyone else. I believe this is shortsighted and destructive both to the publisher and retailers, regardless of how much money it brings in the short term because it closes off avenues for growth."
I have never disparaged the job of a direct market retailer. I know scores of retailers personally, most of whom i count as friends and comrades-in-arms in an industry that in the best of times, is difficult to navigate. Until there is at least limited returnability for backlist titles and such, direct market retailers are caught between a rock and a hard spot, literally rolling the proverbial dice on a weekly basis, as a matter of fact, hoping they at least break even on their investment.
I clearly understand, and appreciate this. Now, i can't speak for any other publisher (some, like Fantagraphics claim they operate conventions at a loss), but at Top Shelf, our A-List authors can often sell numbers on a given book, that almost rivals the actual direct market advance purchase order on said book. (That certainly doesn't bode well on the support [in orders] we get from the majority of retailers.)
For us, convention debuts truly are a matter of survival. We've stated publicly many times that roughly a third of our annual income comes from convention sales. And launch books play a significant part in that. This is simply not a practice we can afford to eliminate. Period.
NO retailer could make the claim, that in the case of Top Shelf, we're stealing from our own benefactors, because not even the combined amount of our total direct market retail support (in advance purchase orders) for 90% of the books in our line, come close to break-even. Without decent advance orders, we bleed money, and sell at shows as a matter of survival. We would be out of business if we didn't do otherwise.
I won't comment on the aesthetic value of our own line of comics and graphic novels, but i can say that lots of people besides ourselves have made wads of money from our A-List titles. Is Robert saying he would rather not have ANY Top Shelf books to make money from at all, were we to go out of business? That makes no sense whatsoever. No Blankets, From Hell, or Lost Girls to make handsome profits from?
O.k, enough of the bitch-fest.
I propose a volunteer program along the lines Robert talked about, wherein as much as possible, publishers and the CBIA work together and the publishers give advance notice to the CBIA, when they become reasonably aware that a book might launch at a particular show. It's not always an easy task, though, because the publishers are at the whims of fate, as they wait for copies to arrive directly from the printer … often times from China or Hong Kong. Publishers might only know this information a week or two in many cases (or less).
Moreover, these publishers should build-in to their projected convention inventory needs a modicum of overage dedicated to selling (at wholesale, of course) to retailers in the city of the convention in question. The advance notice would allow for retailers to inform customers to notify their staff and clientele.
The onus on the member publishers would be the need for honesty and transparency concerning debut books. That said, the onus on the CBIA would then be to first contact the member publishers in advance of a show (maybe three or four weeks ahead), and simply ask; "Do you have any debut books at the show? Any attending authors we should know about?" Copies of these launch books would then be available either before the show opens to the public during set-up (why the gods created the mobile phone), or at any point during the show.
Chris Staros and myself have ALWAYS honored a similar system, of not only of selling our debut books to retailers at the show itself, but also at a 60% discount! For my two cents, a system like this wouldn't deviate from our own method of operation much at all. And i'd wager that many or most of my publisher friends would gladly participate.
I absolutely LOVE Robert's ideas. Advance knowledge of an attending creator allowing retailers to build creator-based displays is genius. So is the idea of producing book plates for the retailers only, for their stores.
I believe there can indeed be a middle ground here, folks.
• Michael Golden has an exhibit up at the Society of Illustrators. So if you're in Manhattan this month, and as much of a Golden fanboy as myself, get yer butt on over there and check it out!
From the press release:
THE paramount club of renowned artists for over a hundred years, and boasting a membership that at various times included such talents as Montgomery Flagg and N.C. Wyeth, the Society of Illustrators has also become the artistic home of many of today's top sequential art illustrators.
A member since 2007, Golden was inducted on the same night as Neal Adams! Michael's artwork is currently being displayed in the third floor gallery, right next to the likes of Rockwell, Lyndecker and Parrish.
The Michael Golden exhibit shows a spectrum of work, and includes a six page sequential segment entitled "The Sniper," which is one of the first appearance of his influential "The 'Nam" characters. In addition, the Golden works include canvas pieces of his X-Men and Jurassic Park pieces and much more.
Here's more fancy art by my favorite comic book artist EVER!!
• I blogged about Ed Piskor's book Wizziwig just recently, and now Ed informs me the story can be read at his website. i really really really dig this work, and think it's Ed's best, most ambitious work to date.
a new update from John Weeks in Cambodia, at his fabulous Comics Lifestyle blog.
• Craig Thompson hits yet another one out of the park. (Of course.) Here is this year's Stumptown Comics Fest poster. Take note: Stumptown has moved up from it's early Winter time frame, to April 26 and 27, filling the void of APE's Spring engagement.
• Here's an insanely cool image i lifted from the Comics Alliance website, drawn by Eric Tan, for a benefit for The Hero Initiative, organized by Golden Apple Comics. All part of an event called Under the Influence: A Tribute to Stan Lee.
• Sadly, i heard through the grapevine that John Anderson's Comics Alliance website is now defunct. You can find stuff still archived there, and i really hope these stay available. Our little world of comics is so small, that a site like this that contributed a great deal to our community in such a short period of time should live on, at least in archival form. Big ups to John and all the contributors to the site, including Kevin Panetta, Ian Sattler, Greg Bennett, Wayne Beamer, et al.
• Scott Campbell continues to produce astounding work.
Here is his "alternative" cover art for the upcoming dvd release of King of Kong,
This motherfucker can draw, baby!! Check out his blog for more happenings.
From the same deranged group of killer cartoonists, here is Nathan Stapley's cover for the new issue of the anthology Hickee.
• Issue #3 of Marc Mason's Comics Waiting Room is now live, and worth a visit!
• Tom Hart's Hutch Own comic strip is fucking AWESOME! So much so, i heartily recommend it for nothing less than a Harvey nomination!! Check out this sampler page he made, to see more.
Tom writes, "Here you'll see some recent developments like the Rockabilly Kid, Rebelville, Hutch Owen in France, the Dalai Lama goes commercial and the outsourcing to India and China of the writing of TV shows... And also what is currently running and begins today - a long story about a furry mascot ("The Unpajamable Snowman") that morphs into a couple different types of monsters, then goes and wrecks the white house and... well, that you'll have to read in real time."
• Matt Kindt interviewed at Steve Duin's blog at Oregon Live.
• Even More bitchin' Michael Golden art... this promoting Golden's "Special Guest" status for the upcoming Atlanta Comics Expo.
• From the desk of David Yurkovich: Mantlo: A Life in Comics, Free Download on Wowio
"Here's an excellent chance for YOU to help comics writer Bill Mantlo (who wrote hundreds of comic stories for titles including Spider-Man, Hulk, Human Fly, Micronauts, ROM, Cloak and Dagger), and best of all, it won't cost you a dime!
"David Yurkovich's 2007 career retrospective of Bill (Mantlo: A Life in Comics) is now available as a free download at Wowio.com. Every time the PDF is downloaded, Bill will benefit directly. As you may know, Wowio features banner advertising. The advertisers pay whenever a book is downloaded. It's that simple. All proceeds (100%) are going directly toward Bill's care. It's WIN WIN!
"If you missed the print version of the magazine, here's your chance to obtain the digital edition and at the same time help out Mr. Mantlo.
"Click here to download the magazine. Special thanks to Bill Williams at Lone Star Press for managing the project and making this happen."
•Â Oh, and here's some kick-ass fanboy art (with two of my favorite Marvel characters) by Frank Cho. I think it's a cover for an upcoming issue of Ultimates Vol. 3. (With some ass-covering art added. Natch.) But really, does it matter? It screams (Druuna artist) Serpieri to me. Fucking killer!!
31 January 2008
• Here's a sweet new piece by Jeffrey Brown, for a t-shirt design promoting Indie Island at Heroes Con in North Carolina.
Jeff was also the COVER FEATURE interview subject for the most recent Comics Journal, #287. And there's even a (GASP!) positive review in there for one of our books; none other than Austrian cartoon maestro Nicloas Mahler's delighthful Lone Racer. Whoo hoo!
• From the desk of Dylan (Sparkplug) Williams:
"I’m going to be teaching at two workshops on comic books, coming up soon at the Independent Publishing Resource Center. People can come to the first one for free but the second costs (I’ll try and make it worth it). Take a look at the IPRC website."
Monday Feb. 4, 7pm
Artist Talk: Jesse Reklaw & Dylan Williams (at IPRC)
Cost: Free, limited space, register
Free presentation from local Portlanders who have made a career out of making the art they love. Each working artist in this series will share his or her own experiences in a specific Creative Field.
Jesse Reklaw is a published weekly comic strip artist (slowwave.com), and Dylan Williams is an art comic book publisher and illustrator (sparkplugcomicbooks.com)
Monday Feb.18, 6:30-9:30pm
Drawing Self-Published Comics (at IPRC)
Cost:$25 members/$40 non-members
This workshop covers the basics of getting your voice out in comic book form, anticipating self-publishing. Learn how to draw with reproduction in mind and many tricks of the trade. The class covers lettering and design specifically as well as basic drawing techniques. We'll be drawing a comic story in the workshop.
Instructor: Dylan Williams
• I may have mentioned this item before. If so, oh well... the new volume of Glomp is out (#9), and it continues to impress. A stunning anthology out of Finland … featuring mostly European cartoonists, as well as American ink-studs Lilli Carre and Anders Nilsen … this little arty anthology that could easily holds its own in this art-brut camp against the likes of old stalwarts NON (which i believe is defunct) and Kramers Ergot, or anything by Picture Box.
I'm not sure where to buy it in stores, but i do know that we'll have a handful for sale on the convention circuit this year. Get 'em while you can.
• Matt Rota, illustrator extraordinaire, has updated his website. This guys has some delightful chops... worth a look.
• Lizz Lunney sent me a terrific flip mini-comic called Tofu & Cats/A Dinosaur Tale. I really dig her minimalist (almost Porcellino-like) chops, and her wonderful upbeat stories. I hope we see more of her work.
After some googling, i've found that one can order her work from an online distro called Parcell Press.
• Eric Reynolds chimes in as the voice of reason at the Fantagraphics website, on the dubious retailer argument that convention debuts screws them.
• Serbia rocked Aussie Open...
Well, a Serbian won the Australian Open, and while i dig the game of young Novak Djokovic, i was really bummed that his countrywoman Ana Ivanovic couldn't rise to the challenge in her match against Sharapova. Like Novak before her though, i see a superstar on the rise in the beautiful Ana, and predict several Grand Slam titles for her in the years to come.
It was the Men's Final though that had me glued to the television into the wee hours of the morning, on a night no less when i had to get up at the crack of dawn with The Kid. Newcomer and the 38th-ranked Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga stormed onto the tennis scene with his ace forehand, and an unassuming charm that had the crowd, the announcers, and myself in love with this guy.
Here's a nice piece about Tsonga at the AussieOpen website.
Djokovic was acting kind of like a dick during the match at times, but boy did he regain his own charming form when he accepted his trophy. Well done Novak.
I'm just happy that the killer crusher Federer was NOT present in the Final. This guy has been the undisputed master for several years now, and is rapidly closing in on Sampras for Grand Slam titles... GREAT to see new blood challenging him.
i've picked up, or been given, some real gems of late.
• The new Strapazin arrived via post today. The theme is boats/ships/the ocean. Can't read German, but holy god, it so does not matter with this magazine. Ostensibly a mixed-bag anthology of original comics content and comics reviews, when you get down to it, it's an Art Book, a gallery, a veritable potpourri of stunning art, comics, and illustration. To be sure, i really have no idea to get this in the U.S. If any retailers out there stock this, let me know and maybe i can get you some sales.
The cover design and illustration by Laura Jurt is terrific.
• Steve Rude: Art in Motion. I've been a giant fan of Steve "The Dude" Rude since he crashed the comics scene with a bang, with his and Mike Baron's great Nexus back in the day. He's so good and so committed, that almost across the board, anything he touches is gold. I was wary when i first saw this book on the shelf. As often as not, many of these sort of monographs can turn out lame, or worse, butt ugly. I'm happy to say, this book rocks. Dude fans keep for eyes peeled for this baby.
• Olle Eksell: Swedish Graphic Designer. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Beautiful. I nicked this cover image from a fellow blogger. (See link.) Check out this link at Happy Mundane for a series of digital snaps from this wonderful design art book.
• Street Sketch Book, edited by Tristan Manco. I'll be up front about this; while i've never had any beef of any sort with it, neither have i had any real interest in Street Art (re: graffiti). I admire the context and lifestyle of the bulk of the practitioners, but the work itself doesn't float my boat. Then along comes this book, "Inside the Journals of International Street and Graffiti Artists" to rock my world. A visual cocktail for any fan of contemporary art. (Yet one more feather in the cap for Chronicle Books.)
• And big ups to legendary local retailer Reading Frenzy, for stocking these last two items. From the ashes of the once vibrant print zine scene in the pre-blogosphere 90s, RF has been in an ongoing evolution, constantly redefining itself to stay alive in an ever decreasing world of print media. The last few years have had ups and downs, but in the last year or two, i'm happy to report that they again have created an eclectic, interesting, and auteur-friendly shopping experience.
• Fabulous new interview with James Kochalka by Gabe Bullard over at the Playback website.
• Former intern Brendan Wright interviews, why ME on his blog The Wright Opinion.
• • • NOT COMICS • • •
• Chalmers Johnson throws down at TomDispatch with some sobering statistics about the ongoing War/Defense Economy and it's crippling long-term affect on the our nation. (This is a bleak assessment, and in a just world is exactly the kind of stuff that should be plainly spelled out to all citizens.)
(Example: our military spending is more than the rest of the world combined.)
• On a lighter, and much more hopeful note, Ana Ivanovic from Serbia has made it to the Australian Open Finals, matching up against the Russian Maria Sharapova. This should be a great match. Sharapova is so annoying with her on-court demeaner, but she's playing with fire. Ivanovic, on the other hand, is a goddess. Beautiful and deadly. I think i'm in love.
On the men's side, i predict Djokovic (Serbia) and Federer (Switzerland) in the Final. Djokovic might win two sets, but if he makes it to the fifth set, Federer will pounce on him for the kill, without mercy. Oh, and boy would i love to be wrong about this. Love Federer's play, but i loathe dynasties in any sport. Djokovic has a huge game and is so much fun on the court.
Tennis fans should be pleased, no matter the outcome. I say Go Serbia!
...had a small role in this killer music video by a band called Scrabble. James wrote:
"Last time I was in San Francisco, I ended up drawing this diary comic strip about a guy I met. Well, it turned out he was in a rock band, and the rock band is pretty awesome and they made a video and now my diary strip is in the video. The song is "Emily, I" and the band is Scrabbel. Here's the video on YouTube."
• More sweet art from Michael Golden. This is promoting the Phoenix Comic Con, January 25-27.
• An excellent review of Tom Hart's beautiful, understated masterpiece Banks/Eubanks can be read here at Comic Book Bin.
Tom is hands-down one of the single most under-rated North American cartoonists in our field. If you're not familiar with his work, then you've no right to call yourself anything close to being part of the comics cognoscenti.
• From the desk of Comics Historian Craig Yoe:
"Starting Friday January 17 there will be a new feature on the Arf Lovers Blog...THE FLYING FLICK! Not only that, but this new weekly segment will be hosted by an exciting new superhero...THE FLYING FLICK! Every Friday there will be weird and wonderful flicks, i.e. incredible videos related to the history of comics and cartoons. And quirky and quickie flicks that are plain nutty FUN!
"What Doll Man is to Mondays, D.J. David B. is to Tuesdays and Wacky Wonder Woman is to Wednesday THE FLYING FLICK will be to Fridays!
"Marvel and DC are rumored to have a rule that the word "FLICK" can't be used in their comic book scripts. They're worried that it might be misread as a dirty word. I have no such morals or sense of responsibility. :)"
11 January 2008
At the Onion website. Oh. My. God. Jimmy Carter on FIRE!!
•Â Steve Lafler has posted a fun piece called "Is Print Dead, or Does it Just Smell Funny?" on his blog. It features myself, Jesse Recklaw, and Dylan Williams among others. The piece is slated to run in the multi cultural arts/music mag out of Chicago, ALARM.
• From the desk of Eric Reynolds:
"Don't miss “REBEL VISIONS: The Underground Comix Revolution” opening this Saturday, January 12 from 11:30 to 8:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. This colorful art show will complement “R. Crumb’s Underground” exhibition opening January 26 at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.
"Organized by comix historian, author and archivist Patrick Rosenkranz, in association with Fantagraphics resident curator Larry Reid, “REBEL VISIONS” features original artwork, artifacts and relix from masters of the underground era. Highlights include a previously unseen original drawing by Rick Griffin, recently discovered by L. A. collector Greg Escalante; rarely viewed original art by feral genius S. Clay Wilson; and locally created original artwork by the legendary Greg Irons, who followed his underground work with a prolific career as a tattoo artist working at the storied Seattle Tattoo Emporium prior to his untimely death in 1984."
For more info (store locations, etc.), head to the Fantagraphics website.
• Jeff Lemire's wife Lesley Anne made this fabulous "action figure" of his character Lester, from the graphic novel Tales from the Farm. Killer!
Jeff has also drawn this beautiful cover for our annual Top Shelf Sampler, this year's 2008 edition.
• Some neat art by web comix contributor Lode Devroe.
• Dash Shaw's new strip is now being serialized on a weekly schedule on his website. Dash is one of the most engaging cartoonists to come around the pike in a long while, and certainly one of the few who challenges the formal limits of the medium.
• Got this in an email from Wayne Shellabarger. Great stuff.
"Here's a provocative Jimmy Olsen page that I've wrestled with for years. Like a Marcel Duchamp, an 11 minute Bob Dylan song, or a comon dollar bill, it's "right there" on the surface but impossible to reduce to one singular meaning. The mystic power of ancient rituals and symbols collide with crass mass produced images working in tandem solely to bail Jimmy out of a minor back-alley scrape with cheap, maize-phobic hoods. Product placement? Did the writer have a giant bowl of canned corn at 2am, later waking on the floor near his bed with terrifying rarebit-like visions of fantastic terror? Truly revolutionary in its pop-culture vest, any serious analysis dead-ended by a maddeningly deflective Warhol-like non-response in the Jimmy's Pen-Pals page."
• Bill's Kelter's new VEEPS website/blog kicks ass! (Ostensibly created to promote Bill and Wayne's upcoming masterpiece VEEPS, this blogs plans to be an evolving commentary on all things political that catch their fancy.)
• How much does Nate Duke, a fan working right now at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica as a power plant operator, supplying power for the 1000+ people there (and a part of the National Science Foundation), love Top Shelf? Check it out. We're representing on all seven continents now!! (Thanks to Chris Staros for the info... Chris' first contribution to the Top Shelf blog!!)
2008 is upon us. Just in time for me to get a cold.
I've been doing so much family stuff, that i don't have much fodder for the blog. So i think i'll continue to run some of the nice art i've been receiving throughout the years.
I have to say, i really do love Christmas. It must have been my Mom who gave me the bug, but for a pagan/agnostic guy like myself, there's an almost magical something that hangs in the air, which no other Holiday does for me.
Here in Portland we had flurries of snow for a few hours this afternoon, but alas, none of it stuck to the ground. Hope all of you readers out there are enjoying this festive day.
• Some dude from Brisbane, Australia (where the gentleman raconteur Eddie Campbell also lives), who goes under the moniker Snoogans, has a bitching tattoo of and drawn by James Kochalka. Kick ass!
• January is Top Shelf Month at the Comic Book Bin! This is great news. So bookmark this page and head back there soon. They're also having some Top Shelf fun at their Facebook page. (Something this old man has never seen.)
• I love the back-matter in Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' brilliant series Criminal. (Along with Walking Dead, the ONLY comics i buy knowing that i'll also pick up the trade paperback later on down the road.)
I haven't even read this second arch of the series yet, but i've devoured the stuff in the back, and on Ed's recommendation i picked up and watched Scott Frank's superb neo-noir, psychological thriller / bank-heist flick called The Lookout.
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in the follow-up film to his breakout roll in Brick, The Lookout hits all the right notes. It's criminal (no pun intended) that this film didn't make more of a splash upon its release. If you're looking for slam-bang action, stay away; but if you like excellent acting, taught scripts, and an engaging crime story, be advised to check this out. A great review can be read here at Dvd Talk.
• Finally, here is a new Christmas e-card from Gregory Benton, and the last of my archival Christmas jpegs from years past.
ITEM! It's not too often i run straight press releases, but when the event warrants i've got no problem at all doing so. This one, for my great friend Bwana Spoons, one of the world's nicest guys, and most amazing creative minds.
Bwana Spoons Art Show at Giant Robot New York
HOW TO DIG A HOLE
December 8, 2007 - January 9, 2008
Reception: Saturday, December 8, 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm
437 East 9th Street
New York NY 10009
Spoons is a Portland-based artist whose freewheeling style was developed under the influence of underground comics, '60s rock posters, and Japanese rubber monster movies. Starting out with stapled-and-folded zines like My Friend the Micronaut and Ain't Nothing Like Fuckin' Moonshine in the early '90s, Spoons has become a regular in the Northwest street art and indie music scene. Endangered animals caught in mid-thought, kung-fu wizards with gravity-defying eyebrows, and swirling psychedelic backgrounds are only some of the elements found in the well-composed anarchy of his paintings and sculpture. He is also involved in the Grass Hut art collective and gallery.
Although the show is called “How to Dig a Hole,” the new paintings, illustrations, and sculptures by Spoons actually address how to get out of one. "What do I fill it with?” he asks. “Blood, guts, tears, dirt, love, and paint.”
Giant Robot has been promoting new art and artists since 1994, first with a magazine and then in galleries. The publication celebrated its 50th issue in 2007 with an art show at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Currently it presents art shows on a monthly basis in its L.A., San Francisco, and New York City locations.
A reception for Spoons will be held from 6:30 to 10:00 on Saturday, January 12. For more information about the artist, GRNY, or Giant Robot magazine, please contact:
Eric Nakamura
Giant Robot Owner/Publisher
eric@giantrobot.com
•Â Also, here's some pics from a few months back. Brendan Wright, who was interning at the time, helped package up this promotion for Renee French's work. This is all a learning process for us (even ten years in), but this package did indeed generate some good response.
The kid LOVES this movie right now. In fact, he loves all the Christmas movies he's seen thus far. Ah, Christmas.
•Â Van Jensen declares Jeff Lemire Best Artist of 2007 at Graphic Fiction!
Congratulations, man.
There's also a nod that Top Shelf (blush blush) is Publisher of the Year! And i think Van said that Super Spy by Matt Kindt gets the nod for Graphic Novel of the Year! Whoo hoo!
• Shawn Crystal drew one of the most bitchin' Fourth World pieces i've EVER seen. (For my Kirby's Fourth World sketchbook, natch.)
Kalibak!
DC Comics … what is wrong with you? Current DCU Infinite/Countdown/52 uber-continuity is convoluted and lame. How about teaming up Shawn here with, oh... Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis on some Fourth World action. Big idea guys. Mark Millar (on a good day) or possibly even Peter Milligan. Ditch the frikkin' angst, and make some fun comics again.
Oh well, a fanboy can dream.
• Another gorgeous Holiday card in my in-box, from Michael Golden and Renee Witterstaetter. Golden has been my absolute favorite comics artist forever, beating even (Gasp!) Byrne in his prime. It's boss to see him back in the mix. You can read a fabulous interview with Michael and Renee, by the late great Daniel Robert Epstein, archived at Newsarama.
For the love of God, feast on page 35 of the Avengers Annual #10, arguably Golden's masterpiece. Features some sweet inks by Armando Gil.
• Finally, some more holiday art from my own archives. Dean Haspiel
How bat-shit nutty is THIS... Craig Thompson nominated for a Grammy Award!!
• Diana Schutz has me on her comp list, for which i'll owe her my second-born child. (Except that, i'll never have a second child...)
Anyway, this time i received the magnificent coffee table tome, The Art of Matt Wagner's Grendel.
I really can't think of an icon in the vast world of creator-owned characters, to have received such an impressive, deluxe treatment. Big ups to Matt, Diana, and designer Steve Birch on this expansive treasure trove.
Between this, the Hellboy book (edited by Scott Allie), the Eisner Sketchbook (edited by Diana) and the Art of Bone (also edited by Diana), The Horse has produced arguably the most impressive line of creator-focused art books in the industry.
• RELEASE PARTY FOR WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED # 38: FACTS ON THE GROUND’ ISSUE
Featuring multi-media presentations by: FLY, SETH TOBOCMAN, MAC McGILL, PETER KUPER, CHRISTOPHER CARDINALE.. NYC Cyclists Memorials, REBECCA MIGDAL, PENNY ALLEN
Friday December 14th, 7:30 pm: at the Time’s Up ! space. 49 East Houston between Mott and Mulberry - Broadway-Lafayette Stop on B,D,F and V trains. Admission is free
• John Porcellino continues to produce one of the longest running series in the world of alternative comics, with King-Cat #68. This comic is a pure artistic bravura performance. A diamond in the rough. A nugget of comics goodness that is perfectly priced as a stocking stuffer. Hint, hint. (Especially good for indoctrinating new comics readers into the fold.)
If you enjoy life's simple pleasures, and love naturalist writing or riveting first-person storytelling, then King-Cat is for you. John's delicate line and seemingly simplistic stylings, hide a deeply complex connection to the rhythms of life, nature, and the human condition.
There's more heart in John's hand-lettered introduction to this 68th issue, than in 98% of the naval-gazing auto-bio comics being cranked out in any given year. Browse his catalog and support this modern master.
John Porcellino is an American original, and his importance to the medium of comics is giant.
• Old Eugene buddy Matt Haley did this fab little ditty, riffing on the old Shaft poster, which is also up at the Wizard website.
• If anyone ever questioned whether there were any great mainstream comics coming out anymore, they need look no further than Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's in-your-face The Ultimates, the second oversized volume of which was released yesterday. Many people complain that this comic has strayed to far from the charming and harmless kiddie fare of yesteryear. That's it's too cynical and mean. Well in case you haven't noticed, the world is a cesspool right now, what with the polar ice-caps about to melt away, genocide, wars, and least but not least, the most corrupt administration the country has ever known.
I LOVED the first volume of this, and can't wait to dive into the finale. Moreover, Marvel is the undisputed KING of great hardcover treatments, chock full of extras and bonus goodies. Besides the requisite items like the covers from the floppies, there's a creator commentary, scripts, pencil art, how-to cover designs, and so much more. I'll be the first to admit that this is decidedly NOT for little kids, but if you have a friend who disses comics, but loves genre action films, James Bond, or action movies with lots of explosions, this will make them a believer. Seriously.
Here is an 8-PAGE! spread from the last issue. Feast your eyes on this, then go buy the book.
(To see a REALLY huge version of this, click HERE.)
• Why would i call this the most corrupt administration in American history. Well, i think Lloyd Dangle, creator of the smash-hit cartoon Troubletown, sums it up nicely.
• James Kochalka has revamped the American Elf website, and now all the archives are free! From James' press release:
"In 1998 I began drawing a daily diary comic strip. (Every day I draw a little strip about something that happened to me that day.) In 2002 I began serializing the diary on my website, AmericanElf.com. On the website, only the most recent strip was available for free and to read the archives you had to subscribe for $1.95 a month. This did pretty well for me, bringing in about $600 a month, net. However... over the years I noticed my readership dropping lower and lower, even as the strip won industry award after industry award. (Three Ignatz awards and a Harvey award). My subscription base remained about the same, but less and less people were reading the strip, even as it became more critically acclaimed.
"I figure this was because a subscription based comic is a bit of an oddity in internet-land. Most web comics are free. Most people who came to my site were probably dumbfounded by the fact that I was asking for money to read the archives. Not to mention that my strip actually sort of sucks in small doses. It's not until you read many strips in a row that you start to understand how good it really is. But unless you were already a subscriber you couldn't read more than one strip at a time. So potential new readers who came to the site by word of mouth, or who followed links, probably turned away rather quickly.
"In the last few months, as the birth of our second child approached, I began to grow more and more restless about the status quo of my website. I didn't really want to give up the subscription money... as little as it is, every little bit helps when you're trying to scrape together a living as an indy cult cartoonist. But I desperately wanted more readers! So with the help of some of my readers and some of my webcomics friends I came up with a plan. Make the archives free, but offer bonus content for subscribers.
"And now here's the even better news. On Thanksgiving, our second son, Oliver Jonco Kochalka was born. Exactly two weeks later on the evening of Thursday, Dec 6, we launched the redesign of American Elf. The news of the change spread. My readership went from about 270 unique users on Wednesday... to about 200,000 or so on Friday. Page views were well in excess of 700,000!
"Life is good! A beautiful crazy baby, and people are actually reading my strip."
• Finally, here are some email holiday attachments i've received in years past:
• Oh yeah... in case no one noticed in the catalog section, here is the cover for Alex Robinson's next graphic novel, Too Cool To Be Forgotten, as designed by Merry Matt Kindt.
Fans of Jeffrey Brown, and his bitchin' Incredible Change-Bots really must see this, the official Fan Club swag Jeffrey Brown is sending out for a mere $20. An exclusive mini-comic; a laminated Club Member Card; and a piece of original art, of your favorite Change-Bot.
• I just finally watched Chris Brandt's new comics documentary, Independents: A Guide for the Creative Spirit. Loved it! There's a plethora of familiar faces in there, and together paint an interesting and fun … if by no means complete … picture of the state of indie comics, and their collective history. Good stuff.
My only quibble with it is that it seems much more catered to an insider, and not so much something that a non-initiate would be able to watch, and then grok on the medium and the industry. I think this is more likely than not by design; i just wish there were more docs out there that could work as ambassadors for this still young medium, and bring more new readers into the fold.
Still, kudos Chris! Nice work.
• Here is a TRULY superb interview with Brian Wood, conducted by Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter.
• Master letterer and designer Todd Klein has published a spiffy print titled Alphabets of Desire; a poem by Alan Moore and lettered by Todd. Looks beautiful.
• The EC sets have been sold. The first person to respond, a benefactor who swooped in and bought the whole lot. Thanks, you know who. As it happens a great friend as well, so not only do i find comfort in their new home, but i can revisit them when i visit my friend. Sweet.
Meanwhile, life happens. You know what i mean? I remember almost ten years ago, the day that my Dad died, and all i could think was,"Stop the world!! Doesn't everyone see what just happened?!!!" But the world rambled on, not even a bump in the road.
Here and now, besides the loss of a childhood hero in Evel Knievel, events have transpired that have turned my own personal life entirely upside-down. My apologies for the long long delay. Details are irrelevant really, but let's just say that my monthly household income is now greatly reduced, while the bills keep piling on.
I'm in a financial bind because of my current situation, and so i'm going to sell many of my Russ Cochran, oversized, b&w EC sets. I've done some research online as for pricing, and have priced the books based on the overall average of each set for sale. I'd prefer to receive payment in the form of a check. All prices will include shipping. Contact me at brett@topshelfcomix.com if anyone has any interest.
If PayPal payment is preferred, i'll have you send funds to chris@topshelfcomix.com. But please contact me first to confirm i still have the set on hand. All sets are in very good / excellent condition.
Two-Fisted Tales: $300.
Frontline Combat: $375.
Haunt of Fear: $600.
Shock Suspenstories: $225.
Vault of Horror: (I can't find this ANYWHERE online, so i'm pricing it as $600.)
Weird Science: $200.
Tales From The Crypt: $150.
Meanwhile...
• How cool is THIS!
• Continuing with the ROM: Space Knight art theme by Top Shelf cartoonists, here is a KILLER piece by Jeff Lemire.
• Wordstock, the annual Portland book fair, was a few weeks ago. While it doesn't generate the same sort of ducats that a traditional comics show does, the intangible benefits make it worth our while to attend. Leigh manned the table most of the time, and we got to schmooze and meet lots of people outside of the world of comics. The importance of this sort of outreach is hugely important, as the very business models of selling graphic novels is morphing before our very eyes.
I picked up some cool swag at the show...
My Hunger for Venison by Gary Baseman, published by Baby Tattoo Books. I've LONG been a fan of Baseman's work, but to be honest, for the last several years he's been fairly redundant. This book landed in my hands courtesy of Bob at Baby Tattoo, and wow! What a left turn, and one i highly recommend.
I had some swell neighbors at the festival. Right across the isle was Eric Reynolds of world-renowned Fantagraphics. As was Portland based publisher Hawthorne Books, and talking with Rhonda Hughes was great fun. Next door was Matt Love of Nestucca Spit Press, who published the fabulous basketball book Red Hot and Rollin', about the 1976-77 Championship Season of the Portland Trailblazers. I was ten or eleven when the Blazers won the championship, and man what a wild ride that was. I can't wait to dive into this book.
McSweeney's had a presence at the show as well, and as i'm occasionally known to do, i picked up a book SOLEY because it had an incredibly designed cover. (Well, and it IS a McSweeney's book, after all.) In this case, the debut novel Bowl of Cherries, by Millard Kaufman.
• Brett Weldele continues to produce mind-blowingly cool posters for the annual Portland-based Grindhouse Filmfest. Here's his newest from the fest a couple weeks ago, plus another look at posters he's done in years past. (Congrats too to Brett, for the BIG NEWS about the Surrogate movie news!)
• Matt Kindt … who's book Super Spy has just been declared Indie Book of the Year by Wizard magazine … has a bitchin' new Flash comic up online.
• Here's a swell new drawing by Aleksander Zograf for an Italian glam-rocker.
• Max Estes has a new website. This cat sure can draw!
• Been listening to some old records of mine, what with all the change going on around here, reflecting, and all that sort of stuff. Popped in a record i wasn't sure held the stood of time, All Shook Up, by Cheap trick. Released in 1980 (when i was a sophomore in high school) and produced by the legendary Beatles producer George Martin, not only does this stand up, it rocks better and harder than most of the crap the kids call rock & roll today. Fuckin' A!
• Finally, in honor of the great one, check out this killer YouTube clip my pal Gregor Benton sent to me this morning, and enjoy this eulogy my friend Wayne Shellabarger wrote:
Today we mourn a great American hero, hell, just a great American. Evel Knievel, may your sky-cycle carry you safe and true, high over those pearly gates and St. Peter and his big golden book where your name may or may not appear. "Shoulda built the fence higher, St. Peter motherfucker!" There's a brand new skeleton and a fresh liver waiting for you there, where you'll amaze the angels as you jump over all the dead rock stars jammin' with Jimi Hendrix. I can't wait for all the specials and tributes. Maybe a biopic starring Matthew McConaghey! Until then i'll settle for my $4.98 DVD starring George Hamilton as Evel and my treasured DVD of Evel's greatest jumps.
• Thanks for listen, people. I'm back now, and updates will be frequent.
• Another killer couple a shows at Floating World Comics.
FLOATING WORLD COMICS
20 NW 5TH AVE #101
PORTLAND, OR
Tonight:
"A Day of the Dead art celebration with local artist Farel Dalrymple and Seattle artist Kazimir Strzepek. Farel made a big splash in the indy comics scene with his debut Pop Gun War and his acclaimed Meathaus anthologies. Last month he made his Marvel comics debut with Omega the Unknown written by novelist Jonthan Lethem. Kazimir is a relative newcomer to the indy comics world, but his debut The Mourning Star won an Ignatz award for Outstanding Series!"
Then, on December 6:
SPACENIGHT - ROM TRIBUTE SHOW
A Collection Of Digital Prints & Original Art To Benefit Bill Mantlo
Floating World proprietor Jason Leivian writes:
"The first comic I ever read was ROM Spaceknight, a silver cyborg fighting evil monsters throughout the universe. I collected every issue until the series was cancelled at #75 (when I asked the comic clerk why it was cancelled he kindly replied, 'Well, they just ran out of stories to tell.'). I didn’t know it at the time, but the artist of that first issue was Steve Ditko, who would later become one of my all time favorites.
"Years later I learned that all of these incredible stories were written by one man, Bill Mantlo. At the same time I learned that he had been injured in a terrible hit and run accident in 1992. Due to the severe injuries, Bill currently resides in a Brain Injury Rehabilitation Nursing Home, and will probably do so for the rest of his life.
"This show will serve as a fundraiser and celebration of the stories Bill has given us. All of the artwork and more will be compiled in a tribute comic next year that will be sold as a non-profitbenefit book for Bill’s brother/caregiver, Mike Mantlo, to provide funding to enable Bill to enjoy somewhat of a quality of life."
Dig this awesome art by Jeffrey Brown.
• Here's a cover in progress, for Nate Powell's forthcoming Swallow Me Whole. Dig!
25 October 2007
max estes is trying to get his fiancé over to America from her home in Norway, and is selling a bunch of new paintings to defray the big costs of doing so.
• Wow. I love it when one of our books gets the "I hate this book so much i'm going to devote three hours of my life and 20,000 words dissecting it" treatment. Fer fuck's sake, you could draw an entire mini-comic in the amount of time it took to write this vitriolic review. Someone named "Abhay" (does this guy/girl freelance for the Comics Journal?) over at The Savage Critic takes Jeremy Tinder's Cry Yourself To Sleep to task and all i can say is, i think someone has some Mommy/Daddy issues. I mean, i'm all for a good critical drubbing, provided it's actually, well, you know... critically minded. I almost never point out negative reviews of our books, but this is actually laughably funny. I think someone here needs to find a good therapist.
• He's a video blog featuring an interview with Jeffrey Brown at Bif! Bam! Pow! Wow!.
• More short video interviews over at Express, courtesy of Scott Rosenberg and Christopher Porter.
• Mike Bonanno was a guest of my pal Doug from Oni at my pre-Stumptown cocktail party, and he just sent me this great Flickr set of pics he took.
My god, how cute is my kid. That's him giving "respect knuckles." Chuck BB in the background. (Carter's favorite album right now, by the way, is Van Halen 1!! You should hear him sing "Jamie's Cryin'.")
• Jesse Reklaw recently threw down with an amazing, dense mini-comic called Bluefuzz, and i'm here to tell you, this is some of Jesse's best work to date. The titular hero Bluefuzz's existential journey in 48 pages is a freewheeling beautiful ride. Featuring a small handful of full-color painted pages too.
I picked this up at Stumptown from the Sparkplug table. Sadly, i can't find any info online about this fine little comic.
• Tom Spurgeon interviews my old buddy, CBLDF Director Charles Brownstein atThe Comics Reporter.
• JP Coovert gave me his new comic Adrift at SPX, and it's wonderful. My favorite book of his ever. Maybe autobiographical, maybe not; the narrative uses oceanic creature metaphors to beautiful effect. Well done, JP! It's not available yet at One Percent Press, but i presume it will be soon, and worth tracking down.
• One of my scores from TCAF in August is a mini-comics sketchbook by one Michael Cho, called Papercut. I'd never heard of this guy before nor had i seen his work, but mark my words people, we ALL will sooner than later. This guy is an AMAZING illustrator and cartoonist. (He drew THE most kick-ass Iron Man in my Avengers/Kirby's 4th World Sketchbook.) Check out his website and be prepared for some luscious art.
• Steve Lafler has a new online comic, called Diva Funnies. Yay!
19 October 2007
SPX 2007 is come and gone now and it was fun fun fun. I've been attending this show since 1996, when David Lasky and myself were the only attendees from the West Coast. There are plenty of anecdotes about how awesome it was in the olden days, when Chris Oarr buried a pig in his backyard and we drunkenly swung at a pinata (this is the same house party at which i met for the first time folks like Greg Bennett of Big Planet Comics, Jeff Smith, and Shannon Wheeler), then into the years where attendance rose and Sunday became a giant picnic. When the show relocated last year i was one of those who bemoaned the lack of Sunday in the September sun... time to kick back reflect with ones peers and what have you. Well now that the show has moved to October, the weather isn't as nice, and besides which, the new hotel is so vast and comfortable, that i didn't really miss the picnic so much. Life is all about change, yes?
Check out this fun little SPX interview with Chris Staros by Scott Rosenberg and Christopher Porter at Read Express.
• Lots of stuff read from the show while traveling back home. This is only a smattering. I also have some photos i took, but i still need to load them.
• While i don't think there was a single "buzz book" that stood out from the crowd, i was given a handful of minis by a creator i might dub the "buzz cartoonist" of the show, at least for me since i'm not familiar with his work. I don't recall meeting him, but i ended up with a handful of mini-comics by self-publisher Joseph Lambert. His art and stories are wide-ranging in style, but man can this guy draw! My favorite was hands down a mini called Turtle Keep it Real. The other books were Thin Bear Loves His Brother and The Bait & Switch. Wonderful stuff.
• Tub Flub, by Brad McGinty, published by Wide Awake Press, Drawn in a bigfoot style ala Renn & Stimpy. Very funny.
• Our own Rob Venditti continues to surprise with a prose chapbook titled Dads, also published by Wide Awake Press. This is a short and delightfully fictional account about growing up and the differences between a "real" dad and a "step-dad." Insightful and extremely well written. Visit the Wide Awake Press website and buy this now, please.
• The anthology Eats is the third and final entry from Wide Awake Press. It's not as good as their previous anthology 666, but it has a couple nuggets of greatness making it fully worth your while. With an (obvious) food theme, Ben Towle's Hush Puppies story was terrific. Rob Ullman privided a nifty story called "Crustacean Frustration" which, besides being a heartwarming tale of forgiveness and redemption, is a real fun cartoony departure from his more well-known proclivity towards drawing smoking hot young women (see below). Big ups to J. Chris Campbell. (Who, by the way received the award for seeming even as remotely drunk as i was on Friday night. Good god, i suffered a two-day hangover after that bender.)
Illustration below by Rob Ullman
• After gearing many good things i finally kicked down some cash at the CCS booth for Ken Dahl's two issue of his series called Monsters, a (loosely?) autobiographical story about contracting herpes. It doesn't sound like it could possibly be one of my favorite books of the year, just from this description, but it's fucking amazing. I'm hooked... can't wait for the next issue! I couldn't find a website for him, but he has a section at I Know Joe Kimple.
• Aaron Renier returns to comics, taking a break from his kid's book, and gives us the first chapter in a riveting detective thriller The Karaoke Encryption. A story about a tomato gumshoe named Thomas "Guns" Atillo (aka tomatillo!!), this little gem is as layered and textured as Spiral-Bound, his Top Shelf masterpiece. An amazing little comic... More! More! More!
• Next up, another comics narrative by a young Jewish cartoonist looking to return to their roots. Sarah Glidden handed me issue #1 of her ongoing story "How to Understand Israel in Sixty Days or Less," and i must say it's a fine effort. Her art style is loose and expressive while maintaining a balanced realism that helps the somewhat intense subject matter. Nice work. I hope she finishes this and finds a publisher for it. We need more stuff like this in the marketplace.
• Drew Weing brings his magic touch to the Fluke 2007 anthology, proving that not only is he one of the most imaginative cartoonists in recent years, but his eye for bring other high-level creators into the mix is also genius. Since this is "just" a convention-based comic it's likely that this superb anthology will be over-looked, which is criminal. Stand-outs include contributions by Shawn Cheng, Patrick Dean, Joseph Lambert (THAT guy again!), Mike Laughead, Dorothy Gambrell, Joey Weiser, Eleanor Davis (of course), Ben Constantine, Matt Wiegle, Michele Chidester, and Chris Wright. The ace in the hole goes, not surprisingly, to Drew himself with the magnificent "Algernon Lamb: Aesthetic Detective," a tight little masterpiece... in fact, i officially nominate this for Best Short Story of 2007, it's that well crafted.
If you like a good indy anthology comic, this is really as good as it gets.
• James Hindle keeps making great little mini-comics, and they get better every time. He gave me a copy of Folded Paper Assembly #3 and i loved it, especially the lead story "Broken Necks." Like a fun mix of Steven (Ribs!) Weissman and early-era Adrian Tomine. I'm really enjoying James' comics more and more.
• Mr Phil of the incredible Indie Spinner Rack was on hand pimping the debut volume of the awesome anthology Awesome, edited and produced by Mr Phil and his cohort Charlito. Chock full of great comics, it was notable for me particularly for introducing me to excellent new talent (for me at least) like Alexis Frederick-Frost and Phil Jackson. Oh, and there's ANOTHER super rad comic in there by Joseph Lambert. Awesome.
• Monster Island Three, edited by Billy Mavreas jumped out at me from Bodega's table. In the art-zinecamp, this artsy fartsy book from Conundrum Press is a fine edition to a welcome new category. It's not perfect but it has a ton of great art and a sweet essay, "In Defense of our Galaxy: On the publishing history of Jack Kirby's Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers," AND a new comic by Bernie Mireault (who also has a new strip in the aforementioned Awesome anthology).
• Steve Hamaker kindly gave me his last copy of the new Shazam!: the Monster Society of Evil hardcover, written and drawn by Jeff Smith and colored by Steve himself. Wow! A choice entry in the much underrepresented all-ages category (especially from Marvel and DC), this is the first comic from one of the Big Two i've read in years, where i felt a reader didn't need a masters degree in mainstream continuity to enjoy it. A perfect example of how the big publishers can and should be making comics, if they ever hope to have a chance in hell in finding and developing new young readers. More please.
(Steve, i really owe you one. And thanks for the props on your own blog, eh?)
• My favorite book of the trip probably wouldn't even register to most comics readers here in the ol' U.S. A retrospective of the life and output of the highly regarded French publisher Editions Cornelius. Focused more on the art than the history, Cornelius: ou l'art de la mouscaille et du pinaillage is the sort of dreamy book that makes my heart all aflutter. The only similar book i can think of in this category is the also wonderful book, 25 Years of Kitchen Sink, which came out a long time ago.
Cornelius publishes some of the world's greatest authors, and has published the definitive editions of David Mazzuchelli's ground-breaking stories from the seminal three volume Rubber Blanket series. And to prove how great publishing minds think alike, compare the gorgeous Crumb cover to this crazy cool tome, to our own Seasonal Sampler, art directed by myself and drawn by Jeffrey Brown. I swear on my Mom's grave i never saw this before we completed the Sampler.
• The MAD War on Bush. A collection of strips from the last several years of the worst presidency in the history of the USA. VERY funny stuff. I laughed and i cried too, because some of the mock-able shenanigans of the administration are more frightening than funny. Picked this up at Samurai Comics in Phoenix when i was down there visiting family this last week.
• Pinwheel, by Mike Bertino. Given to me at the Stumptown Comics Fest last weekend by my pals at Tender Loving Empire, this little comic is a formal tour-de-force, and oh so good. Mike was doing mini-comics way back in the day (most notably his ambitious 4-issue mini-series Trigger), then sort of disappeared to go to school. Well now he's back, and the world is a better place for it. Worth tracking down. It's a little spendy at $10 plus shipping, but it's got a trick screenprinted cover and is limited to 250 copies.
Mike's website is also chock full of tasty art.
• Tripwire Annual 2007. This reboot follows a four year hiatus, and it's excellent. The previous run was really hit or miss, leaning more often towards the miss side for my tastes. The new ish is a huge leap forward, and if it wasn't for the weak comics section near the back, would be one of my favorites of the year. The bitchin' Hellboy cover by Duncan Fegredo is almost worth the cover price alone.
• Comic Foundry #1. Love it! Love it! Love it! I've raved about this many times in the past. Three words. Buy. This. Magazine.
• I wrote before how much i loved the art of Laura Park with her comic Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream. Well, since i gave my copy to Gregory Benton for letting me crash it his pad during MoCCA, i finally finagled a swap with Laura for a new copy of my own. I read it. Fucking amazing! Arguably my favorite new indy cartoonist to come along in ages.
Laura, do you wanna do a book together?
• Speaking of Stumptown... this was yet another year besting the previous one. I dig the new location and hope it stays. Had fun. But i still can't believe that a town that is arguably the freaking MECCA for comics in North America doesn't burn down the house with rockin' success. What gives? I had way more business at my table at TCAF in Toronto several weeks ago.
Still, BIG BIG props to all involved. It was a breeze to work, the staff and volunteers were great. This was really the first year that gave me hope that this will eventual evolve into a real and truly vital comics show.
Michael Ring of the excellent retail store Bridge City Comics took this snap. God i look like a dork. (It only makes sense.)
•Â So i did a HUGE music purge recently (loading lots and lots of partial albums into my iTunes), and picked up some new records in trade, all recommended. Four On The Floor, by Juliette Lewis & The Licks; Revival, by John Fogerty; Magic, by Bruce Springsteen; Sounds of Mass Destruction, by Annie Lennox; and a nice (used) reissue, Jimmy & Wes: the Dynamic Duo, by Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery on Verve Records. It's amazing to think of the cumulative music making experience behind Annie, Bruce, and John. What, a century and a half almost? Three people. And they're still kicking out killer new projects. I picked up the Juliette Lewis one on a hunch, having seen and liked her on the tube on stuff like VH1's I Love the 70's show and whatnot. I'm glad i did. It rocks seriously hard! The band is tight and Juliette is on fire. Pure power pop at its finest.
• Meanwhile, here's a series of drawings my a very short-lived intern i had this Summer named Andy Kettler. The kid can draw! This was a series of rounds of drafts he did for a poster i'm going to have another intern poster around Portland.
Round one.
Second Round and Final.
24 September 2007
John Weeks sent out an email update for his excellent site Comics Lifestyle. I notice he's done a fine revamp of said site as well. I really dig this vintage-style header!
• Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum of the wildly successful library-based comic strip Unshelved, have served up anouther fine comics-review of Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison. Thanks for the props, guys.
• Kevin Moore is back on the editorial cartoon bandwagon with his strip called In Contempt, and man he's funny as shit! Welcome back to the political fold, Kevin!
• Jen Contino interviewed Alex Robinson back on teh 17th at The Pulse, regarding his new comic Lower Regions. Check it out.
• Matt Kindt has a new blog and a newly designed Super Spy page as well. The man is a fucking genius!!!
• Issue #3 of C'est Bon is out (sporting a cover by the great great James Jean), and this humble Eurocentric anthology continues to impress. A vital new voice in international comics available to the North American audience, on the same level as the likes of Papercutter, Mome, and You Ain't No Dancer. Highly recommended.
• Tom Hart is at it again:
"I've teamed up with the terrific folks at The Panelist, a website about investing ethically, to start a new weekly strip, The Money Warrior!
"The Money Warrior's on the hunt! He's current, direct, ruthless and primal! The Money Warrior wants to kill you some money!
You can keep up by checking www.thepanelist.com or www.themoneywarrior.com once a week.
"The Money Warrior started as a bit of a parody of Jim Cramer of Mad Money, and in fact I created the first iteration for my Metro strips. But those strips reminded me that in the end, I dislike parody and that I'd rather invent my own creations, something new from a starting point of parody. The folks at the Panelist recognized a similar traveler in the Money Warrior, and asked for more."
•Â I've been cleaning up my desktop and archiving lots of "stuff" lately. Some great offbeat/rare art most of which were jpeg email attachments, which i plan to slowly start running here at Hey Bartender!.
Here are two stunning cover paintings that Scott Morse created for a book he may or may not do some day for us called Lyrical Whales. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
2 of the guys with the coolest names ever … Bwana Spoons and Justin Scrappers … are currently exhibiting an art show at Bwana's fabulous gallery space / hipster boutique store Grass Hut. It's fucking amazing. If you are in Portland anytime soon, you really should check this out.
• Punk rock cartoonist extraordinaire Fly is conducting a DIY Comix & Zine-Making Workshop through MoCCA. It's a 6 week course, every Thursday 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. from September 20 - October 25. Class is limited to 15 so sign up today!
Sept 20 - Introduction - developing story ideas & scripting with guest Abby Denson
Sept 27 - Page Design - thumbnail sketches & research with guest Edowyn Vazkez
October 4 - Final Pencils & Inking Techniques - with guest Sabrina Jones
October 11 - Extra work week - to catch up & get help with any problems - with Fly
October 18 - Production - "paste-up" - copying & distro - with guest John Holmstrom
October 25 - COMIX & ZINE-TRADING PARTY!! - open to the public! - free for MoCCA students & members - $5 for everyone else - OR - bring some zines to trade & get in FREE!!!
• Here's an interview with James Kochalka's editor at Random House, Nick Eliopulos. It's pretty interesting actually.
(Random House published James' most recent kid's book, Squirrely Gray.)
Or whales? Anyone? I didn't think so. Let's talk about life on Planet Earth. If you read this blog for the comics, then skip this one.
Here's a very disturbing news article i read last week that brought me to tears. Most readers of Hey Bartender know that i'm big big big on marine life and the oceans. (I've been glued to my television and staying up waaay past bedtime lately watching the BBC produced Blue Planet. Highly recommended.)
In a nutshell, an appeals court overturned a ban on the US navy's use of sonar in upcoming training exercises off California that was aimed at protecting whales disturbed by the subsea emissions. How utterly depressing.
Here is a petition with singer James Taylor attached to it, directed to the Secretary of the Navy.
Most of my letter-writing is directed to our Congress-people and Senators, but in this case, the situation is out of their prerogative, so i used this petition to make my voice heard.
10 September 2007
Sorry for the long wait, folks. I've been up to my eyeballs with work work work. Good thing i absolutely love what i freaking do, eh?
That said, three stellar new books are now finally off to the printer: Jeff Lemire's long-awaited second entry in the Essex County trilogy, Ghost Stories; Chris Staros' Yearbook Stories (with art by Bo Hampton and Rich Tommaso); and Alex Robinson's fabulous love-letter to Dungeons & Dragons, Lower Regions.
• Meanwhile, The Stumptown Comics Fest is a mere three weeks away, and i'm getting fired up. We'll be co-hosting a bitchin' after-party on Saturday at the Tonic Lounge with Fantagraphics, featuring The Morals, Fox Hollow, and Tractor Operator (for a record release no less!). Saturday, September 29th, $6, doors at 9:15, 21 & over. We'll have a typical merch table setup like at any rock show, so come out and kick ass!
That same night Cosmic Monkey (now residing ONLY at the Sandy Blvd location), is hosting the first annual Stumptown Trophy Awards. Not much available info on that yet.... stay tuned.
Stumptown poster by Sarah Oleksyk
• Steve Lieber sent this out, worth noting. Formerly Mercury now Periscope Studios is a serious hot spot in the comics world.
"When our studio changed its name from Mercury to Periscope, I thought we were sort of stuck with our old blog URL. I was happy to stumble upon a button in the blogspot dashboard that enables you to move your content to a new blogspot URL, (subject to availability) and I used it. Bang! All of our content was now available at periscopestudio.blogspot.com . Boy was that easy, and it It didn't offer up any sort of warning, so I assumed that the mercurystudio.blogspot.com address would keep the old content.
"Hoo boy, no. Within minutes a spammer took possession of our old URL and pasted viagra and porn ads into a google cache of our site's template. I've written blogspot's support, but their help forum is full of people complaining about never getting any reply from blogspot support. I'm not expecting much help there. In the meantime, we're writing to you, our friends in comics, asking you to change your Mercury Studio links to this."
• From our good friends at Stripcore... if you happen to be in Finland next weekend.
This year, the Helsinki comics festival, the biggest event of this kind in Finland and whole Northern Europe, will host Stripburger for the second time. It happened for the first time in 1999 and now your favourite Slovenian comics magazine is back to the scene of crime with the Honey Talks exhibition to present comics based on painted beehive panels to the Finnish and international audience. In the past (this year is the festival's 22nd time) the festival already hosted celebrities such as Moebius, Enki Bilal and Will Eisner among this year's guests are Christophe Blain, Yvan Alagbe, (France), Keitaro Arima (Japan), Olivier Schrauwen (Belgium) and Gunnar Lundkvist (Sweden) and Helge Reumann (Switzerland) in a joint project. There'll be 14 exhibitions in all (the Stripburger's one will take place from Sept. 12th to 30th in "Jangva" contemporary art gallery), and the main programme will take place September 15th and 16th in the "Gloria" cultural arena.
• I have been reading stuff periodically. Most recent novel was the new edition of Jack Kerouac's Darma Bums, with the nifty cover by cartoonists Jason. Stellar novel. Totally inspiring.
The bedside table kept hostage a book i picked up waaaay back at MoCCA from old friend Ria Schulpen (Bries distribution) the second volume of her anthology Hic Sunt Leones ("Here be Lions") featuring all Flemish artists. It's entirely in English … in fact my pal Mark Nevins was one of two translation editors. It's in full luscious color and a visual explosion. As per anthology rules it has its hits & misses, but here even the misses are incredibly illustrated. There's a great review here at the Forbidden Planet website, as well as some nice background info on Ria.
Cheers, Ria!
Just picked up and immediately devoured Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly's outstanding Oni Press book Local #12... the Austin TX issue. Brian's formal conceit with this series is great, and this issue is really out of nowhere, and yet one of the most powerful comics ever, revolving around the life and fate of a young man who grew up with one big ass-hole of a dad. Tragic and all too common sadly. This is great great stuff. Each issue is self-contained, but the cumulative experience of reading this (GASP!) serialized is wonderful. Brian did similar work with Becky Cloonan on Demo which i also recommend. There are very very few comics i prefer over the trade, and these are two of them.
Will Dinski gave gave me a wildly killer very rare hardcover comic, either at MoCCA, San Diego, or TCAF... man, i don't recall. In any case, "Beautiful, Cool and Irreplaceable," the story in Habitual Entertainment #4 is awesome. The twisted sordid tale of rarified Hollyweird freaks, hell-bent on self-image, power and ego really gets under the skin. His art reminds me lots of vintage Pete (Hey, Mister) Sickman-Garner, and his black black humor actually does too. Wicked good comics, also recommended.
Will is doing some excellent comics. Check out this strip on the comix section of our own website, and if you like, for god's sake find more.
• Just In... NEWS from Dave K. Comics:
"I designed a T-shirt and it goes on sale this Monday, September 10 for only ten dollars. After Monday, the shirt will be available for a week at the price of $15. WOOT features a new t-shirt everyday and this is the first one I designed for them. It's a funky rollerrink logo silkscreened on an orange T-shirt. Available in a variety of sizes."
My friend Gary Butler who writes the comics column Blood in Four Colors for the horror magazine Rue Morgue) wrote this to me last week regarding Matt Kindt's new book Super Spy:
"Good god, man, what a masterpiece. I already sensed the absolute brilliance of a writer/artist at the top of his game when I read (and loved) the advance pdf version but !!WOW!! what a difference a physical book makes. The hell with espionage…Super Spy is quite simply a note-perfect argument for why print must not die.
"To the story/art: I reread the book last night (first 'physical' reading, though) and ONCE AGAIN tonight. This has shit-all to do with our friendship…this is about top-level comics that demand extra attention without draping themselves in pretentiousness.
"No doubt, I didn't 'get' the whole story on the first read (well, nor the second; I ain't as sharp as I once was, and I've probably been pistol-whipped a few times more than I care to admit), but the best part about Super Spy is that Klindt neither wants nor NEEDS readers to 'get' it completely on the first pass. Other (lesser) creators brimming in pretense want (in fact NEED) the same thing, but it's all about self-validation for them, which is the wrong reason, even if it's subconscious. Klindt wants…yes, NEEDS…nothing more than for the reader to have as much fun as he's having; what a saint.
"As to my point about the 'physical': RAMMED home within the first few pages, the minute the 'distress' treatment kicked in. Sure, it was there on the pdf, but there's no comparison. What a superb idea, making each individual reader feel a part of the spy network by putting pages-that-have-been-through-hell in their hands. They must know someone connected to get so far! Seriously: a beyond-effective, subtle touch.
"Where does this book need to get reviewed in order to be considered Eisner-worthy? (Don't tell me them judges make up their minds sans media credit.) You should targeting the big guns with this one, because the second read made me realize that it wasn't just brilliant fun…it was just brilliant."
• Dave K has some new comics up on his website. Please note the new URL:
www.davekiersh.com
• From Fantagraphics:
Friday (Aug. 31) from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in welcoming two of the country’s most celebrated cartoonists: Kim Deitch and Megan Kelso.
• James Kochalka's book, Squirrelly Gray, was just released by Random House. He made an animated "trailer" for the book, with his own voice doing the narration and voices. (And a little piece of instrumental music from his old rock opera Carrot Boy the Beautiful as the background music.)
• Oh, and did i mention how much TCAF rocks the f*cking house! I met so many cool people, partied my ass off, and had a successful business trip. Kudos to ALL involved, especially superman Chris Butcher, who makes it all happen. I met J Bone, Michael Cho (Holy Mary Jesus Buddha this guy can draw like a MoFo), Willow Dawson (see below), volunteer Caryle (hit by a car while riding his bike during the convention), who ended up being something of an assistant throughout the weekend, and girl-duo supreme Amanda & Victoria, two hilarious volunteers who had me in tears. So much more... great dinners with Jeffrey Brown and Jeff Lemire and Jeff's delightful wife, much late-nite geeking out on super-heroes and music and politics and scotch with my pal Gary Butler. Besides dropping some of the weekend's take at The Beguling (the best comics shop i've ever been to) i also checked out a pretty new store called The Labyrinth (on Mike Huddleston's recommendation), which specializes in books on Animation, Illustration, Anime Art, Graffiti, Life Drawing, Sketchbooks, French Bandes Dessine, Concept Art, etc... fine shop. Good stuff, and they have a blog too. Who else did i talk with over the weekend?... Jim Rugg, Paul Gravett, Dan & Katie from Green Brain Comics and so many more.
I still had unread piles of comics, mini-comics and graphic novels from San Diego before i left for Toronto and now i'm treading water while my basement office fills with yet-to-read books. Yeesh. (Content for future blog updates, i suppose, eh?)
• Met a guy there named Aaron Navrady who did this fabulous hockey page.
• Also met Willow Dawson, who gave me the Find Of The Show for me. It's a small, folded, painted full-color booklet, and it's a gem. Really really wonderful work, and an big empowerment ride for girls.
• Meanwhile, there's yet more new comics on our website, this one by Felix Tannenbaum. Check it out.
• Top Shelf alum Max Estes has a new online daily strip, called My Life as a Bunny. It's beautiful and fun. Also worth a look.
• And yet another Top Shelf alum, Josh Simmons has an art show coming up at David Youngblood's tiny but tight gallery, The Pony Club.
"STEAK & BEER: 10 Years of Comics, Paintings, Music and Porn by Josh Simmons
The Pony Club Gallery is proud to present a retrospective of comics and art from alternative cartoonist and journeyman, though currently Portland based, Josh Simmons. While comic centric, the show includes paintings, photography and video ranging from the viciously satirical to the embarrassingly autobiographical to the sickening pornographic and to the gut-fuckingly hilarious. Starting 10 years ago with the early, long out of print mini-comics, Lick and Twitch-Happy. Traveling on, to the Top Self publications Cirkus New Orleans and the mini-series Happy, which documents his time performing with a sex circus, the End Of The World Cirkus/Know Nothing Family Zirkus Sideshow. And onto the current horror graphic novella, House, published by the prestigious Fantagraphics Books. Dotted throughout with a smattering of his cartoons-fucking-flesh-people from the ten-issue photo comic, All About Fucking and the bootleg Batman comic, which DC Comics would most likely never care to see the light of day. Drawings and comic pages will hang side by side with other works that reflect the artist’s life during his many travels and experiences."
First Thursday, September 6, 2007 6:00-10:00pm. Pony Club. 625 NW Everett St #105. Portland, OR 97209. (503) 334-7658. The show runs through October 2, 2007.
• Joe Keatinge from Image scored me a most excellent and unexpected book, called Intersections, that may have slipped under the radar. It's a back & forth jam book by Duncan Fegredo and Sean Philips, two MASTERS in contemporary comics. A visual and conceptual tour de force.
• Hey, Bartender reader Domen Finzar from Slovenia sent me this fun link; an ongoing project featuring alternative cartoonists doing interpretations of Spider-Man. He's looking for contributions folks.
•Â Finally, here's some miscellaneous images i've had on queue to post.
Old Man Briefcase, by Tom K. (Who i also chatted up at TCAF, in addition to his table-mate, the affable Jon Lewis.) Tom graciously gifted this original art to me, after i'd been drooling over it back during APE
Wolverine, also by Tom K. (So cool!)
Bunny Shaker by Jeremy Tinder. A spot illustration made for a small cocktail party i hosted when he was in town for his show at Floating World.
The new issue of Clutter magazine is out, and it has a beautiful 3-page feature spread on our good pal Bwana Spoons, of Grass Hut. Bwana's work is positively dreamy, and it's wonderful to see him finally starting to get the props he deserves. Whoo hoo!
• i received an excellent, unsolicited comic book in my po box a few weeks ago, called Into the Dust. It's issue #1 of a 12-issue, full-color series, and it's excellent. You can learn more at Into the Dust.
• I've been remiss as of late in updating this thing... and if there are any readers out there waiting with baited breath, my apologies. That said, there are countless blogs far superior to this one that update daily or close to.
• There's so many nifty comics and books i've picked up as late. I'm still catching up from some of the items i picked up at MoCCA, let alone San Diego. And now i'm leaving on Friday for TCAF (Toronto) where it's certain i'll be getting even more cool swag. As i've said before, i simply don't have time to write lengthy reviews. Needless to say, if you read it hear on Hey, Bartender, unless otherwise noted, it means i really dig it, and endorse seeking it out.
- The Art of Luca Tieri: a beautiful sketchbook by the self-titled Italian cartoonist, published by The Department of Art and Power. Gorgeous stuff in the now-ubiquitous "animated" style popularized in recent times by the likes of Bruce Timm. The content skews less towards men-in-tights though, and more towards indy culture. Great stuff.
- Everybody Takes a Turn, by Vincent (King Mini) Stall. Yet another superior "mini" comic, stock with a separate screenprinted case, this story is like a dreamy mushroom trip … a little hard to follow at times, but the ride is the important thing, not the destination. And like the rest of the known world, he has a killer new blog, always worth a peek.
Vincent's shit rocks the house. He's been promising a book for us since the 80s!... Vinnie?
- Injury, by Ted May. Hopefully but the first of many many more issues by one of today's most criminally underappreciated cartoonists of my generation. Ted May's work might not provide insightful observations on the human condition, and that's o.k. Because what he does provide is pure F.U.N. Published by Buenaventura Press.
I absolutely love Ted's comics, and cannot recommend them enough.
- Ratatouille: Little Golden Book. I still have yet to see this film (heck, i just in the last several weeks watched Cars for the first time... and Cfunk LOVES that one), but Scott Morse scored this for me from the Pixar studios, and it's a gem. Those folks at Pixar well and truly "get it." I'm not sure how many stores carry this little treasure, but i found it at Amazon.
Thanks, Scott!
- Multiple Warheads, by Brandon Graham. Holy good lord in heaven above, this is one stunning book. I'll be honest, Brandon's early work was, well... developmental. But this sucker … published by Oni Press … is outstanding. If i had to define it, i'd call it a cross between new kid (and Brandon's pal) Corey Lewis and old-school ink-stud Paul Pope. And like both mentioned cartoonists, where plot and story may be lacking, the shear vision and execution more than makes up for this. In a word, "WOW!"
Oh, and by the way, in researching this post, i just discovered that Oni has recently updated their website. Tres chic, oui!
- Amelia's Magazine #7. This British hipster/lifestyle publication rivals any and all of my favorite domestic mags (such as Flaunt, Mass Appeal, Swindle, Giant Robot, Beautiful Decay, Vapors, etc.). I can't tell you whether it's widely available here in the U.S., but i've been finding it at my local Barnes & Nobel.
(Hey, i'd buy it at a local independent bookseller, but truth be known, they in Portland simply don't have the wherewithal to carry it... a real bitch of mine these days. You always hear about the indies complaining about the chains, and yet i rarely see the indies stocking anything but the most common books on the market, instead of those offbeat rare oddities that readers will not find at the chains.)
• "THE LAND OF BROKEN HEARTS": A RARE EXHIBITION OF ARTWORK BY AL COLUMBIA
Floating World Comics presents a rare and exclusive opportunity to view new work by the acclaimed and elusive artist Al Columbia. September’s first Thursday will see the debut of “THE LAND OF BROKEN HEARTS,” marking the first public exhibition and appearance by the enigmatic artist in over a decade. The exhibition will feature a large collection of limited edition prints, original artwork, handmade books, and other ephemera from his Orange Sunshine Company, much of it created especially for this show. The artist will also participate in an informal Q&A during the event.
"THE LAND OF BROKEN HEARTS" is a new series of illustrations that serves as a preview for a new collection of work that Columbia will release in 2008 from Seattle’s Fantagraphics Books. Floating World will have all of Columbia’s published works to date on hand at the event, including The Biologic Show, Blab!, Mome, and Zero Zero.
The opening night reception will be documented on film by Kevin Belli, a Boston filmmaker who has been creating the documentary "Whatever Happened to Al Columbia?" over the last four years.
Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave #101, Portland, OR 97209
Store hours: Tuesday - Sunday 11-7pm
• And i'm off to Toronto for TCAF. Lordy i'm looking forward to this show. If it's half as much fun as the one two years ago, i'm in for a blast! I'm staying with my good buddy Gary Butler, the comics columnist (Blood in Four Colors) for the seminal horror magazine Rue Morgue.
Holy god, a couple nights ago i was surfing through cable tv for some background noise laying out Jeff Lemire's new book, when i stumbled across some young blond woman on PBS, on-stage playing guitar and singing up a storm. I was instantly impressed with this girl's pipes. And her song-writing as well. So i jumped online to find out who this was, and lo and behold it's Jewel.
I suppose that shows my age, maybe? I'd heard this name for years, naive and without a clue who it was. In fact, my presumption was that this was more likely than not just another poseur, hand-created by some slimy producer. But no, whether you like her or not, Jewel is the real deal. The last few songs of her set were with a small orchestra, her singing a cappella, and i literally had shivers running down my spine. Wow. Wow. Wow.
A quick search reveals that the television program was called Soundstage, and this episode was Jewel From the Rialto Square Theatre.
• Newsarama has a short interview with Nikki Cook … tres fabu artist of the Brian Wood-penned, forthcoming graphic novel, Dogs Day End.
Whoo hoo!
• We finally have some new comics up on our website, and they are awesome. In a more realistic manner we have the fine stylings and deep subject matter of Gabriel Frizzera, with the story "Heavy Metal Heart." Then on the opposite end of the spectrum stylistically, yet no less incredible, are some surreal comics in the art-brut school by Bart (Aardbart) Johnson.
Bart Johnson:
• Here's a pic of me sandwiched by my two of oldest pals in comics, Garret Izumi and Steve Lafler. We were out for cocktails that night (me…drinking mango mojitos), followed up by some activity out behind, well... never mind. (Photo by Garret!)
• Some cool books i picked up at San Diego. (Who knows when i'll have the time to read 'em... but even at a glance they look sweet.)
- Chance in Hell, by Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
Mean, by Steven Weissman, reprinting his earliest awesome self-published comic books (Fantagraphics) This is one of very very few comics, where the sheer delightful energy of Ribs!' self-published floppies are so damn cool, i'll keep both the original comics as well as the trade paperback collecting them.
Scrap Mettle, an art book about Scott Morse, designed by Chris Pitzer. Thanks, Scott! (Image) Wow! What an amazing collection of work by Mr Morse. Pen & ink, color work, washes, etc.
- Kent Williams, a stunning monograph, gifted to me…thanks Johnnie! (ASFA) Brilliant. The guy is a master.
Comic Art #9, edited by Todd Hignite, designed by Jonathan Bennett (Buenaventura) This deluxe magazine is so good that it rivals Craig Yoe's seminal ARF! Chock full of high-carb comics calories, with fabulous contributors, contents, and a seriously lush design sensibility... kudos to Mr Hignite and Mr Bennett, and thanks to Mr Buenaventura for publishing it.
Pulphope, by Paul Pope and Chris Pitzer (AdHouse) I picked this baby up at Floating World here in Portland. Two words come to mind. Eye. Candy. This is a real gem, and the world is a much better place with this book now in print. Get one while you can.
- The Ride Home, by Joey Weiser (AdHouse) A wonderful story, drawn with aplomb.
- Fleet Street Scandal, by Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham (self-published) Easily some of the most exciting new talent for me in years. While they each have very unique styles and concerns, they are at the same time very compatible as a team. I love the mix of sweet design skills and luscious chops. These are two to watch out for.
Shark Week is wrapping up on The Discovery Channel, and all i can mutter is "whew!!" If this were Shark Month, or god forbid, Shark Year, my life would effectively be over. Done. I can't get enough of these magnificent animals.
If you dig sharks…and even if you think you don't…some of the programs i've been attached to this last several days have been insanely, impossibly amazing to watch. Hello, have you EVER seen the Great Whites in Southern Africa BREACH when they snatch seals from the surface?! Wow. There's lots of great clips on YouTube.
Or how about the two different guys who were getting snuggly with Great Whites and Tiger Sharks? One of whom was putting Tiger Sharks in a state of "tonic immobility," effectively rendering the shark nicknamed "Man-eater" completely homeless. The other one free-swimming (sans scuba gear) with both Tigers and Whites.
Too cool for words. Sharks have been tragically misunderstood, and are being killed off at a staggering pace. This type of mind-bending research is integral a better understanding of these perfect predators, and their effective conservation.
•Â And just so there's some comics content, here's a few beautiful watercolors by my ComicCon roommate, and creator of Korgi, Christian Slade. He made these during his trip to San Diego.
Thanks, Christian!
This one he did looking out the 7th floor window of the Embassy Suites, on Eddie Campbell's bed, looking out on the harbor.
• Hey Top Shelfers (Shelf Toppers? Shelfheads?), here's a post from the battlefield a few days ago, courtesy of New Guy Leigh Walton...
I'm blogging to you now from sunny San Diego, where the weather is gorgeous, the crowds are endless, and the costumes are uncomfortable (Gorgo
from 300? Really?). And, of course, there's comics everywhere. Yes, it's the comic world's Christmas, Vegas, and Senior Prom all in one, the San Diego Comic Con International.
Top Shelf's booth is an island of sanity in the sea of madness. It's my first time at the show, and I'm staying here in the Top Shelf Zone as much as possible. As much as the big story seems to be the convention's immense size (this year being even bigger than usual), I've been glad to discover that it's not overwhelming. We've got a constant stream of folks coming by the booth, so I never lack for new folks to talk to -- but that's just it; the traffic in this part of the hall is mild enough that I can actually carry on a conversation with everyone who comes by. Over in the big TV/movie/game/sculpture pavilions, good luck finding space to breathe, let alone get to know somebody.
That's been the real treat for me -- the interaction. I've never been in such a great social environment as this, with a never-ending army of happy and excited con-goers coming up to me and asking about these books that I love. And these aren't smelly basement-dwellers in bulging Klingon armor; they are, without exception, bright, friendly, very cool folks of all shapes and sizes who love stories and pictures and that magical picture/story Reese's cup we call comics. Some of them are long-term Top Shelf fans eager to pick up the latest wave of books from this season; others have never read our stuff but have heard good things about us or are simply drawn to the style of one book or another. We've passed out countless copies of our huge FREE sampler book and then watched those same folks come back the next day, eager to buy! Top Shelf has always been about creating a genuine relationship with our fans, and I think we've made a bunch of new friends this week, the same way we always do -- one at a time.
But Top Shelf is not the only game in town! Behold, I have been to the San Diego Comic Con, and I have seen great wonders:
I have seen a grown man changing the diaper on a baby in a Wookiee costume (the baby, not the man). I have concluded that the Sci-Fi Channel has soaked their promotional flyers in LSD, because they sure did spend a million dollars on a several-acre amorphous blob of silver plastic illuminated by fifty computer-guided party lasers -- it helpfully curves up from the floor to form nooks in which to lie back and gaze at the psychedelic display.
I have seen guys in white robes walking around wearing backpacks which emitted both hip-hop tunes and videoscreens on poles. I have seen a movie display several dozen feet tall where the name of the movie was conveniently obscured by the giant sign saying "PROMOTIONAL GIVEAWAY TOKENS REDEEMED HERE." I once found my path blocked by a mob of a hundred people, who (I soon realized) had gathered to stare at an amputee booth babe with an M-16 for a leg. Meanwhile I was able to walk right up to Tom Scioli's table and tell him how much his artwork blows me away on the incomparable GØDLAND. Then I turned around and bumped into a dude staring at a painting of Jean-Luc Picard that was so reverent that I think Leo III rolled over in his grave complaining of idolatry.
Update: the Sci-Fi Space Rave theory is confirmed - a staffer just came around and distributed ring pops.
Check back later for a panel report from "The Many Faces of the Graphic Novel," including FOUR different Top Shelf creators!
It's so nice to sleep more than six hours in a night, in my own bed, and not wake up hung over to the gods. It's over... San Diego ComicCon was, as ever, an overwhelming morass of comics geeks, costumed freaks, star-fuckers and pop-culture thrill seekers. And while i was perpetually exhausted, i loved every minute of it.
For some very odd reason i can't pinpoint, the floor seemed less crowded than in years past, and yet our gross receipts reflected much more. Also, i felt like the vibe amongst the like-minded vendors in our little corner of the floor was overall fabulous. I heard much lip-service to the problems inherent in this show, but smiling faces belied the disgruntlement.
Intern Leigh Walton impressed my partners Chris and Rob. So much so in fact, that we hired him on the spot. Leigh will start part-time doing publicity and marketing. (Look for an official press release soon.) He's also doing a guest-blog on "Hey, Bartender" later tonight.
The Eisners were less painful than in years past, even though we didn't win any awards. (Renee French was awarded last weekend however, with an Inkpot Award for achievement in comics.)
I love seeing so many old friends, and meeting new ones, although it's hard to get in more than a short conversation here or there.
The CBLDF party was my favorite party this year, hands down.
My intern from last year, Jacquelene Cohen, who now works at Dark Horse, was assigned to be the "handler" for Joss Whedon!! ARRGGGHHH!! I'm so jealous! I'm a total Whedon-head. Moreover, I'M the one who turned Jacq onto Buffy and Firefly!! Anyway, kudos to Jacq.
I haven't had time to read many con reports, but i really enjoyed Steven Grant's "Permanent Damage" column over at CBR, and of course, the phenomenal reporting and commentary by Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter.
Brain is still fried...
• First Thursday is back tonight at Floating World Comics here in Portland, featuring spaz-rock cartoonists Corey Lewis and Brandon Graham. 20 NW 5th Avenue, (downtown, right off of Burnside), from 6 - 10:00 p.m. Should be fun. These guys can draw like muthas.
• Jeff Lemire is a cool guy. I love his comics and i love his terrific blog! How awesome are these drawings he made for San Diego!
• Chris Duffy, the mastermind bending the minds of our youth with the work of indy cartoonists in the Nickelodeon Magazine's Comics section, is the subject of an interview with Brian Heater over at The Daily Cross Hatch.
• I picked up a boatload of fanboy items at the show, including a couple back issues of the great great in-house fanzine, The Amazing World of DC Comics, an old old issue of Rocket Blast Comics Collector (which Scott McCloud informed included on his second ever published work, in an article written by Kurt Busiek), a super-funny issue of the wonderful (Fred) Hembeck comic magazine, and the newest issue of revived EC fanzine, Squa Tront.
I'll make a more comprehensive list of neat stuff as soon as i'm a little more caught up.
So i just received a package with the BRAND NEW Fall 2007 Season of books from First Second (thanks, Gina!!) and it's a doozy! An amazing line-up featuring Johann Sfar, Lat, Sarah Varon, Gipi, and the long-awaited Laika, by Nick Abadzis. WOW!
They'll be set up at booth 1635 in San Diego. All of these books are worth picking up. This has to be there most solid season to date. Under the sharp editorial guidance of Mark Siegel, First Second continues to impress. Kudos.
Meanwhile, Top Shelf will also be pimping our wares at San Diego in full-force. Chris and myself will continue our 10th Anniversary Celebration with a dozen cartoonists in attendance … all available to sign their new releases. Also, Renee French is no less than an honored guest of the con, and will be appearing on two panels.
Drop by the booth, meet the whole gang, and pick up a free 10th Anniversary Poster and Seasonal Sampler while you're there!
On Thursday from 12:30 - 2:00 Renee will be on the panel titled The Many Faces of the Graphic Novel, along with fellow Top Shelfers Andy Runton and Jeffrey Brown. Saturday, from 1:30 - 2:30 p.m. is the Renee French Spotlight panel, in a conversation with Dan Nadel of Picture Box Inc.
• O.k. so i saw Spider-Man 3 a couple nights ago, and while i seem to be bucking the trend here, i'm going to come out and say that i LOVED it!! I won't argue about some of the details that were critically reviewed … where DID the Venom alien come from?; the Flint Marko character could have used more devolpment; yeah, "dark" Peter Parker was pretty freaking dorky; maybe there were too many storylines... But i feel that the genius of Sam Raimi and the heart of the story were right in harmony with my own personal Spider-Man. Slice out the song & dance routine (even though the story WAS being told marvelously here), and you've got one hell of a kick-ass action flick.
And i'm a guy no less, who always HATED Venom. It was so way far after my time. (Same with Big Wheels AND Transformers.) But as a vehicle to bring out the Dark Side of the Force in Petey, it served its purpose deftly.
So sue me! Viva Spidey!!
• James Kochalka:
"Here's some paintings I did while I was at Monhegan Island in Maine. You can't go anywhere without running into someone doing 'plein air' painting, so I joined in the fun. It's been an artist's colony for over a century I believe, and most of the important early american landscape painters worked there."
Beautiful work, James!
• My good friend Steve Ryan did the color painting of Alex Robinson's cover drawing for his forthcoming fantasy book, Lower Regions. Steve has been featured now in four issues of Heavy Metal, and i KNEW he'd be perfect for this gig. My inner fanboy is absolutely in love with this artwork!
• Jason Little and Myla Goldberg have made an addition to the family, along with little Zelie... introducing Kestrel Xesca Goldberg Little.
• The new Funbook is ready! The release party will be the 8th of August at Holocene. Show Me the Pink is headlining (their last show ever!). Old Growth, Here Comes a Big Black Cloud, and Mustaphamond will also be playing. There will be giant posters to color with crayons galore. It will be also serve as a fundraiser for the genocide intervention fund.
The Portland Funbook #2 is 80 pages of coloring & activities from over 60 of Portland's best artists. Each issue will contain: an 80 page book with contributions from 60+ local artists, a 7" vinyl record with 12 one-minute songs from local musicians, 4 stickers, 1 temporary tattoo, and two 1" buttons and. Each book costs $5. $1 from each purchase will go to The Genocide Intervention Network.
• Finally, though i simply don't have the time to give these a proper review, the following new books in the collection come highly recommended.
The Rise and Fall of Yip the Wonder Dog, by Andy (Fox Bunny Funny) Hartzell. I found this at local comics & coffee shop Guapo. It's a delightful, wordless mini-comic with a tasty screenprinted cover, and published by Global Hobo.
Breaking Up, illustrated by Christine Norrie. Admittedly, i've yet to read this book yet (written by Aimee Friedman, published by the Scholastic imprint Graphix), but Christine's artwork is literally stunning! Wow. In the league of today's best female cartoonists, like Carla Speed McNeil and Colleen Coover, Christine is really really really one to watch.
Strapazin #87. The new issue of the brilliant Swiss comics magazine Strapazin arrived in my po box last week. I'd give my left pinky finger for this to be released (in English) to a wider North American audience. if you've ever wondered what the rest of the world's comics look like at their best, look no further than this.
The Chronicles of Conan volume 12. To a 14 year old, wimpy-assed Brett, coming off of his "fat" years, discovering first the pulpy paperbacks and then the Marvel comics featuring Conan the Barbarian, this escapist fantasy was a salve on my tender ego. Dark Horse has been reprinting the entire Marvel run, beginning with the early Barry Windsor-Smith issues, and up through the brilliant John Buscema stuff. For my tastes, Buscema is as much THE Conan artist as Frazetta. His work on this title was sublime. And with this 12th volume, they bring my nostalgic run to a close, since after the epic Belit: Queen of the Black Coast saga, the comic's quality control quickly plummeted. But holy shit, these 12 books Dark Horse has done are sweet. The coloring is as good as it gets, and as far as i'm concerned (no offense to any of the creators involved), the new Conan comics don't hold a candle to this stuff. Thanks to Jeremy Barlow at Dark Horse for hooking me up.
The Art of BONE. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I really didn't imagine that the "art of" book for Bone would be anything special. Especially help up to the incredible Art of Hellboy and Art of Will Eisner books, also helmed by Diana Schutz (and designed by Cary Grazzini) at Dark Horse. I was so wrong. This is a masterpiece edition, and the perfect coda to the sweeping saga of Bone. Simply outstanding. Diana, i really owe you one.
is a total stud. I just watched tonight's episode of Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS, and it was an inspiration. At issue, "Tough Talk on Impeachment." Guests were Bruce Fein, a nationally and internationally recognized expert on Constitutional law, and John Nichols, author and political journalist who's been writing the "Online Beat" for The Nation magazine since 1999.
Consider, a host of attacks on the very constitution itself, from executive privilege and signing statements to extraordinary rendition, from the Plame leak to the suspension of Habeas Corpus and unwarranted SPYING on U.S citizens!!
THINK about just this short list of transgressions (and there are many MANY more), and the implications they hold. By Bush's self-proclaimed rule, he could, for reasons of his own, label YOU an enemy combatant, kidnap you from your home, spirit you away with a hood over your head to an unknown secret location on the other side of the globe, with no communication to or from anyone else … let alone a lawyer … and then set about torturing you.
THIS is constitutional? What gives? Or how about Bush's recent commutation of Scooter Libby followed by his subsequent order to Harriet Myers to spurn congress and NOT respond to a congressional subpoena, because he declares the authority not to? Our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. Hello, impeachment!
I worry about what kind of neo-fascist state my almost 3-year old kid might grown up in, if this behavior doesn't change... it truly frightens me. John Nichols said it well, when comparing the people of the U.S. to those of the Roman Empire and its state of mind which led to its collapse, by pointing out the difference between those who CHOOSE to live like good little subjects, not paying attention to the matters of state, letting themselves be entertained to death, with those who choose to live with a strong sense of civic duty, and demand responsibility of their elected leaders. Man, what's going on right now burns me so much! Too bad the corporate owned media refuse to fulfill their obligation as the Fourth Estate, and to hold our leaders accountable for their actions in the press, else more citizens might be as peeved as i am.
It's been at least a few months since i last wrote to my Congressman and my Senators... tonight's the night, baby!
It's been i think over a year, when the Republican-controlled Congress fuc*ed over PBS and Bill Moyer's brilliant program called NOW was cut in half, since he left the show itself and the spotlight, seemingly dispirited. Well Bill is back, and it's a better world for it. Check out the weblink for this particular episode and educate yourself. Then call or write your congressional leaders and demand action, that they uphold their duty and protect our laws and Constitution from a derelict Executive branch, as they were sworn into office to do.
• O.k., now that i'm down from the soapbox, here's some not so uplifting news making the rounds on the blogosphere... Comics are broken! No, comics aren't broken at all … the BUSINESS of comics is broken. This is the sentiment with the recent announcement that Cold Cut Distributors are selling their company. This does indeed suck. I've known and worked with Mark Thompson for over a decade. He will be missed.
And, like Slave Labor publisher Dan Vado (as read on The Comics Reporter), i have to admit to being somewhat cynical about all the hoopla and hype that the new graphic novel model in the book trade, coupled with a "healthier" direct market are indicators of stability across the board. When in fact my experience would seem to indicate that the glut of Marvel and DC titles currently flooding the market, as well as an overabundance of weak comics everywhere else has created a situation where it's really very difficult to get much support from the retail community for indy comics, except for only the biggest A-List books in a given season. (And certainly not entirely via the fault of the retailers themselves, what with non-returnable sales [in the direct market] understandably inhibiting a willingness to take risks on new titles, creators, or publishers.)
Granted, there are more excellent comics coming out now than maybe in the history of the medium, at least in North America. But with so many hundreds of books in print, the ratio against the good stuff is by orders or magnitude.
Yeah, a precarious state we find ourselves in. I wish there were some answers. Clearly there needs to be more efficient methods of both retail and distribution. I love what i do, so i want a healthy marketplace. And God only knows, i'm NOT a believer in comics' sole future domain being online. I want to hold a book in my hands, feeling its pulpy goodness, the smell of ink on my fingers. And those are the kind of books i want to publish.
• Dean Haspiel has a new website dedicated to none other than his alter-ego, the beatnik super-hero Billy Dogma!
Rock!
• JULY SUPER SPY!
Tonight was the Super Secret Spy Art Exhibit at Subterranean Books. Wish i could have been there.
Matt Kindt’s newest art show ENIGMA MACHINE opened tonight … and was also a book release party to celebrate the release of his new book Super Spy. The show will run through September 9th.
Here’s what early reviews of Super Spy are saying:
“...one of the best comics I’ve read.”
“...invokes the feelings after reading Speigelman’s MAUS.”
“These spy stories are filled with pathos and longing -- Amelié meets Alfred Hitchcock in comics form. It transcends traditional spy fiction.”
• I've got a bunch of nifty books i want to mention, but i'd rather get even this short update uploaded. So stay tuned for some really cool books.
• The Center for Cartoon Arts has graduated its first class. This is great news.
James Sturm's press release:
The Center for Cartoon Studies graduated it's first class in May so what better time for one of my infrequent updates. As the school takes on a life of its own it has been increasingly difficult to write updates. At one point I felt like a new parent: I could wrap my arms around the school and understand its simple needs. I could show pictures and write about everything the baby was up to. The school, now a toddler, is stomping all over the place, in nine different directions at once and is kicking up a lot of dust (and still leaving me sleep deprived)!
So without further ado (or strained metaphor) here's a brief update:
Graduation: After two years of hard work, the pioneering class of eighteen "seniors", graduated on May 19! Parents and loved ones came to White River Junction from all corners of the country to celebrate the graduates' achievements. One highlight of the spirited and emotionally charged day was the great Patrick McDonnell's commencement speech. Patrick's comic strip Mutts is a true gem (and so too, not surprisingly, is Patrick and his wife Karen).
I Know Joe Kimpel: This site was created by CCS alumni Adam Staffaroni and Emily Wieja to showcase (and sell) the great work produced by CCSers. If you are curious to see what this next generation of cartoonists is making check it out.
CCS Now Offers Master of Fine Arts Degrees: This is huge for the school. Huge. Here's the skinny.
Summer Workshops: Beginning Monday July 9th, our third summer offering workshops for ages 16 and up. A second week (beginning July 16) was added due to demand. Participants came from as far away as England, San Diego, and Texas. There are a few spaces left if you or someone you know is interested. They are a lot of fun.
CCS, The Movie: Extremely talented documentary filmmaker Tara Wray's next project: CCS and White River Junction. Check out the trailer featuring CCS students, faculty member Steve Bissette, Art Spiegelman, and yours truly.
CCS Book Projects: CCS is involved in various publishing projects including working with Norton in redesigning Will Eisner's landmark instructional books. CCS's first book with Hyperion Books for Children, Houdini, The Handcuff King, by Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi is out in stores and is receiving rave reviews. The next book in the series, Satchel Paige, Striking Out Jim Crow, by myself and Rich Tommaso, will be released in December. The third book in the series will be Thoreau at Walden by John Porcellino. The Houdini book can be ordered through Amazon. You can get a great read and support the school in one fell swoop.
Greeting Cards: CCS student work will be featured in a line of greeting cards next summer produced by Sunrise Greetings (an independent subsidiary of Hallmark Card). It was great working with Sunrise… the students sold lots of work and the cards look great.
Looking Forward: Next fall CCS is honored to have Jason Lutes as visiting faculty. Jason is the cartoonist responsible for the amazing graphic novels Jar of Fools and Berlin. Other guests will include Lynda Barry, Drew Weing, Eleanor Davis, Alison Bechdel, and Gary Trudeau. And that is just for the fall! And also in WRJ this year will be CCS's third Fellow, T. Edward Bak. Thanks to the LEF Foundation for keeping our fellowship program rolling along!
Congratulations: To Sam Gaskin and Alexis Frederick-Frost, two members of CCS first class who won the prestigious Xeric Award to publish their own comic. Tp the CCS's Sundays' crew for producing Sundays, a beautiful anthology that was one of the "buzz books" of New York City's MoCCA Comics Festival ( all these books available through Joe Kimpel). To fellow Vermont cartoonist and CCS visiting artist Alison Bechdel, on the success of her amazing memoir Fun Home. And Congrads to Phineas Roy Ollie, CCS managing director Michelle Ollie's new son who came early, in time to witness the CCS graduation.
• There's some great stuff in the current Diamond Previews catalog (although thankfully less than normal), including the following items i'll keep my eyes open for.
… Sunday Press (the guy who did that mammoth and gorgeous Little Nemo book) is releasing volume one of the oversized Gasoline Alley Sundays, in full color. It's called Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, and makes a perfect companion the series Drawn & Quarterly is producing with the b&w dailies.
… And original Goon graphic novel by Eric Powell (from Dark Horse), is on its way, title Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker. Eric is one of the most outstanding cartoonists in a field overflowing with fine creators. And The Goon is just wild campy fun.
… The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, by Jerry Beck. Jerry and Amid Amini run the wonderful cartoon blog Cartoon Brew, and this book looks to be a treasure trove a cartoony goodness.
… The Completely Mad Don Martin, from Running Press. Whoo hoo! My god i loved Don Martin's comics in the pages of MAD when i was growing up. This looks to be a set not unlike the beautiful slipcased Farside and Calvin & Hobbes collections Andrews McMeel issued a few years ago. And if memory serves correct, this will be the first in a series collecting work by the second generation of Mad creators. (The generation i grew up on, including the great Sergio Aragones and Al Jafee.) Man, imagine the entirety of Sergio brilliant Mad Marginals!
… Finally, the long awaited Jack Kirby biography which Mark Evanier has been working on forever. Titled Kirby: King of Comics, this is perfectly timed to appear alongside the way overdue deluxe Kirby collections making the rounds these days.
• Gregory Benton sent a follow-up email (with pictures) of the following show at Space 1026, SCAB ON MY BRAIN!, which opened last Friday, July 6.
Space 1026 presents "Scab On My Brain!"Â, a group exhibition curated by New York artist Jordin Isip. This assembled group of twelve artists use their own unique and personal visual vocabulary to create figurative narratives that are both allegorical and psychological. In some works humans can be beastial, weak, imperfect, and vulnerable as they journey through imagined lands, in others, the protagonists may be quietly heroic in seemingly mundane and everyday environments. But whether these images (drawings, paintings, silkscreens, and sculpture) are multi-layered, oozing, cacophonous, and hyperbolic or understated, minimal, reserved and poetic we are compelled to enter realms devised by artists with distinct sensibilities.
Jordan Awan, Gregory Benton, Kiersten Essenpreis, Jordin Isip, Aya Kakeda and Liz Lee are based in New York City.While Carl Dunn and Evah Fan also have strong New York roots they now live in Providence and Los Angeles respectively. Mariano Ching and Louie Cordero live in the Philippines, James Kirkpatrick in Canada, and Nate Williams in Argentina. Space 1026 presents "Scab On My Brain!"Â, a group exhibition curated by New York artist Jordin Isip. This assembled group of twelve artists use their own unique and personal visual vocabulary to create figurative narratives that are both allegorical and psychological. In some works humans can be beastial, weak, imperfect, and vulnerable as they journey through imagined lands, in others, the protagonists may be quietly heroic in seemingly mundane and everyday environments. But whether these images (drawings, paintings, silkscreens, and sculpture) are multi-layered, oozing, cacophonous, and hyperbolic or understated, minimal, reserved and poetic we are compelled to enter realms devised by artists with distinct sensibilities.
