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.

Derek Kirk Kim

James Kochalka

Dean Haspiel

Max Estes

(Not exactly sure, but this looks like Joseph Lambert)

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.

Mr. Grinch!

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!

• Andy Runton is featured over at Broken Frontier.

• Beautiful new Christmas jpeg from Dino Haspiel.

• And one from the Center for Cartoon Studies, drawn by Dane Martin.

• Tom Spurgeon interviews the ever-affable Tom Devlin at Comics Reporter.

(Cover of Coober Skeeber #2 (The Marvel Benefit Issue), the book that put Devlin, and his Highwater Books label, on the map.)

• Marc Mason has posted a fun Year-In-Review over at The Comics Waiting Room.

• 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

Dylan Horrocks

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:

Two from Ulf K.

One from Gregory Benton

One from Chris Watson

(I'll put some more up next time.)

• 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.

•Â Here's some recent pics of The Kid.

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.