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LINE Webtoon's series of theme months continues with July's "Superheroes" launch. The mobile-based comics platform is rolling out several series including the second comic in the New Brooklyn superhero universe, the return of Heroine Chic, and the debut of The Badguys, winner of the Stan Lee/POW! Entertainment Superhero Comics Contest.

Rolling along with the Fall line-up for comics, here’s another September release, Hang Dai Studios has teamed with Alternative Comics to release their fall schedule, which includes three titles Beef with Tomato by Dean Haspiel, Smoke by Gregory Benton, and Schmuck by Seth Kushner and an all-star line-up of cartoonists. It’s a powerhouse line-up of talent, each book with its […]

I’m not the kind of critic that likes to wax poetic about the production of a piece of art.  I believe that, although an artist’s life always influences their creations, a work should be judged on its own merits.  However, occasionally, as is the case with Seth Kushner’s comic anthology Secret Sauce, exceptions must be made.

As he elucidates at the start of the work, Kushner spent much of 2014 in and out of the hospital being treated for Leukemia.  He was told that he only had weeks to live.  Then weeks went by.  A few more.  Yet again, a few more.  Time passed, and Kushner still lived.  By the end of the year, Kushner had done what doctors had said would be impossible— he defeated his leukemia.  And then he made Secret Sauce.

Secret Sauce is structured as a set of five short stories, two of which are illustrated and three of which are produced as photocomics.  All feature Kushner’s writing, but each story has its own set of artistic collaborators who lend a different flavor to Kushner’s words. Going in, I was worried that Secret Sauce would be a set of ruminations on mortality— the frailty of life and the relentless passage of time.  Happily, I was proven wrong.  Secret Sauce is not an exploration of death, but is instead a celebration of life.

In Secret Sauce‘s first short story, “The Brooklynite in ‘A Man of His Word,'” Kushner immediately establishes an upbeat and energetic tone that persists through the stories that follow it.  Shamus Beyale provides great art for this short.  The backgrounds are rendered with care, and his characters are expressive and drawn with clearly defined lines.  Colorist Frank Reynoso uses a palette of upbeat pastels with some bright primary colors for accents, which further book’s energetic feel.

Kusher’s script never takes itself too seriously, and there are some great laughs as comic-artist-by-day-superhero-by-night Jeffries aka The Brooklynite takes on a disgruntled hipster-meets-MMA-fighter named Billy Burg.  It’s a testament to the team’s collective effort that they manage to successfully create a comic that feels full and fun in only four pages.  It’s fast and leaves the reader breathless and waiting for more.

Sci-Fi short “”Youtopia” does something similar, with a heavy dose of well-directed action composed by artist Charles Stewart and a beautiful color scheme and world design inspired by Tron.  These two works have nothing in common in terms of plot, and instead find connection through the energy that Kushner imbues into his script and that his collaborators put into their art.

However, where Secret Sauce really shines is in its photocomics, particularly “Heyday.” In it, Kushner tells the story of a young girl whose grandfather used to be a superhero known as The Insomniac.  Kushner and co-director Dean Haspiel do some great work in this short, bringing a fun and heartwarming story to life with an artistic technique that is not commonly explored in comics, and is occasionally even maligned.  I myself often think about what would make a photocomic resonate with readers, and there’s a lot that can be learned from “Heyday.”  Its greatest success comes from the use of color in each photographic panel.  Characters are highlighted by wearing outfits with bright shades of blue, and the scenery of the living room that the story takes place in is pushed into the background through a unified use of oranges and browns.  It’s a simple, but incredibly effective technique, and really helps the story feel less like a vaguely connected series of images and more like a well-composed comic.  That’s not to say that “Heyday” is completely successful— the digitally produced sound effects and speech bubbles clash with the photographs, and Kushner and Haspiel’s use of stroke in one panel feels too synthetic when placed up against a photograph of a person rather than an illustration of one. Ultimately, however, the risks the two creators take in this photocomic are worth the slight missteps, as they demonstrate that comics still have plenty of room to grow and that Kushner has unique ideas on how to direct that growth (the ending to the story is also pretty ingenious and got a well earned laugh out of me).

It feels disingenuous to rate or score Secret Sauce on a scale.  Kushner doesn’t try to shove a message down anyone’s throat.  He’s not in it to prove something.  He’s in it because he loves comics, and it shows.  Secret Sauce is a revelry that is playfully self-indulgent with its references to Brooklyn culture and superhero tropes.  It’s a deeply personal work that is simultaneously universal in its themes.   It’s a book that plays with form and theme in ways that are not commonly explored.  In short, Secret Sauce is not a treatise— it’s a party.

Secret Sauce debuts at NYC’s MoCCA Fest 2015, which takes place this weekend, April 11th-12th.

It’s time for our annual look at some of the comics coming out for this weekend’s MoCCA Festival, being held this year at Center 548, is located at 548 W. 22nd Street, just off the Westside Highway, with programming at the High Line Hotel on West 20th Street and 10th Avenue.

And here’s the books we got information on. This is just a teeny tiny smattering of the new stuff available — but scroll down for signings from Fantagraphics, NBM and more. And scroll around Tumblr for more more more, especially the MoCCA Festival tumblr.

Jeremy Nguyen:

I’m debuting a 20 page collection of my webcomic “Stranger Than Bushwick”, which is currently being serialized on Bushwick Daily. This collection explores a lot of New York by way of Brooklyn, millennial lifestyles, and hot-button issues like catcalling and gentrification.

Cover by Dean Haspiel

The Fox #1

Story, Line Art: Dean Haspiel

Script: Mark Waid

Color Art: Allen Passalaqua

Letters: John Workman

Cover Art: Dean Haspiel, Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson, David Mack, Ulises Farinas, Ryan Hill, Thomas Pitilli

Publisher: Archie/Dark Circle Comics

By Matthew Jent

“You don’t have to be a hero anymore.”

The Fox, with story & line art by Dean Haspiel, script by Mark Waid, and colors by Allen Passalaqua, opens in media res with our titular hero tied up, lamenting his bad luck, and wishing for an ibuprofin. It’s a Spider-Man-like How did I get into this mess? inner monologue that introduces a delightfully self-deprecating superhero who’s already in over his head. Right away the art by Haspiel and Passalaqua looks expansive, bright, and weird. The Fox has a black eye, he’s already unmasked and beaten on page one, his legs are kicked out away from the beam, like he’s falling even though he’s tied up.

Which, it turns out, he is. This is the story of the Fox falling into a mystery, into an adventure, and into trouble, in spite of his intentions to just do right by his family.

With a story by Dean Haspiel (indie comics mainstay, a collaborator of Harvey Pekar, and an Emmy winner for title design on HBO’s Bored to Death) and a script by Mark Waid (superhero guru, author of the most-fun Daredevil run in years, and co-founder of digital comics site Thrillbent), The Fox is a first issue that presents a lived-in, authentic world. A superhero universe we’re peering into for the first time even though it’s existed for a long time. Which is kind of true — The Fox is part of Archie’s new Dark Circle imprint, a shared-universe reboot of heroes who used to be Impact characters, who also used to be Red Circle characters, some of whom used to be Blue Ribbon, Archie Adventure, and Mighty Comics characters.

These heroes have been around. The Fox dates back to 1940, two years after Superman’s first appearance. But Haspiel & Waid allow the Fox to grow up a little. This Fox — the one tied up on page one — is Paul Patton, Jr., a photojournalist who became a superhero to attract danger and further his career. A brief, two-panel memory implies that the previous Fox may have been Paul’s own father, something he didn’t realize as a kid. Now Paul has his own grown-up son, and he wants to put his superhero days behind him — but he hasn’t quite stopped wearing his costume under his street clothes, yet.

Haspiel’s interpretation of the Fox’s costume is a cross between Batman and Spidey. He’s dressed all in black, but his fox ears can go a little floppy and the mask’s white eyes go wide with surprise. When we get a glimpse of the supervillains the Fox — or a Fox — might run against in later issues, the cast starts to look a little like something from the Venture Bros. But while Venture is a parody of super-science-action-heroics, The Fox manages a nostalgic throwback art style without feeling dated or ironic. The emotional reactions are real (though I hope — and I trust Haspiel & Waid will provide — more from Paul’s wife Mae than the blandly supportive wife/mother role she plays in this issue) even in the face of unreal, high stakes, super-villainy.

John Workman, a solid, solid pro whose work you can read more about in this CBR piece from 2007, glues this issue together with lettering that guides the eye and reinforces the rhythm of Waid’s language. Shrinking dialogue as Paul zones out of his son’s monologue about changing technology, bolded words that emphasize cadence without being distracting, and slightly out-of-sync letters when Paul’s son Shinji is taken by surprise — small but artful touches that showcase the subtle craftsman Workman has been for decades.

The Fox makes you wonder what a Spider-Man book would have looked like if Peter Parker had been allowed to grow up, stay married, and have kids. The Fox is a chance to prove wrong the folks who say the superhero status quo has to stay frozen for decades, that it’s better to poison the well than to move forward. The Fox is aware of the past 75+ years of superhero comics, superhero gimmicks, and superhero clichés. But it’s not trying recreate them or preserve them in amber.  The Fox puts the mask on one more time and and strives to make some new memories.

Archie’s The Fox: Freak Magnet mini-series is being reborn as an ongoing comic moving the book from the previous Red Circle line into the Dark Circle. Previous collaborators Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid are back to chronicle the adventures of Paul Patton Jr. as The Fox in the Fox Hunt storyline. CBR posted the first preview and solicit for the brand new series. We showed off cover artwork and a few other Dark Circle previews here, but with the first issue only a few weeks away this preview is our gift to you.

The Fox follows Patton Jr.’s continuing as a golden age hero. In fact, it’s a little bit strange to even refer to the character as a hero, his character draws out stories to snap them up as a photojournalist for his day job. If the previous storyline is to believed, The Fox is a magnet for sheer weirdness, spawning diamond powered handguns. The back-and-forth introduced into the opening dialogue from Patton introduces the humanity missing in the last storyline by humanizing the Patton Jr. as someone who needs pills on a crappy day. Waid and Haspiel seem to have something special on their hands with this new window into the freak magnet.

Story: Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid

Art: Dean Haspiel

Colors: Allen Passalaqua

Cover: Dean Haspiel

Letters: John Workman

32-page, full color comic

$3.99 U.S.

NEW ONGOING SERIES FROM DARK CIRCLE!

THE FOX is BACK! Emmy Award winning writer/artist Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, HBO’s Bored to Death) is once again united with Eisner award-winning writer Mark Waid (Daredevil, Thrillbent) for FOX HUNT: Part One “The Situation”: When a billionaire philanthropist prepares Paul Patton Jr’s home town for demolition, our hero is sent on assignment to photograph the event. But what strange force lurks in the shadows, and why will it take Paul’s alter-ego, THE FOX, to stop it? The answer is the beginning of a deadly FOX HUNT and you won’t believe what happens next! Don’t miss the debut issue from the critically-acclaimed team that brought you THE FOX: FREAK MAGNET, featuring FOUR all-new variant covers! With art from Dean Haspiel, David Mack, Thomas Pitilli, Ulises Farinas and Chris Samnee!

The Society of Illustrators will host the “Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream” exhibit.

This program honors the work of the “Little Nemo in Slumberland” comic strip creator, Winsor McCay. The closing date has been scheduled for March 28th.

According to the organization’s website, this art show is “based on Locust Moon Press’ anthology Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, many of the world’s finest cartoonists pay tribute to the master and his masterpiece by creating 118 new ‘Little Nemo’ strips, following their own voices down paths lit by McCay. Contributors to the exhibit include Paul Pope, Gregory Benton, Dean Haspiel, Yuko Shimizu, Jim Rugg, Ronald Winberly, Andrea Tsurumi, Raul Gonzalez III, and more!” Click here to see samples from the book.

2015, the year of the team up. Brooklyn’s Hang Dai Editions, a studio whose members include Gregory Benton, Dean Haspiel, Seth Kushner, and Josh Neufeld, will team up with Alternative Comics for distribution and some publishing in 2015.

Haspiel and Neufeld were previously published by Alternative during the early aughts when Geoffrey Mason ran the line. Current publisher Marc Arsenault is happy to welcome them back to the fold. “Josh and Dean were a big part of Alternative in the past—not just as creators. It’s nice to have that continuity. I’m looking forward to everything that comes out of their studio.”

The line-up includes the long awaited SCHMUCK by Kushner, delayed by his illness and now happily back on track following his miraculous recovery. And new work by Haspiel, Benton and Neufeld is always welcome. Here’s the lineup:

SCHMUCK by Seth Kushner and various artists

September 2015
184-pages. Full color.

SCHMUCK is a graphic novel memoir about one man’s awkward coming-of-age-quest to find love in New York City, written by SETH KUSHNER, with design by ERIC SKILLMAN and a forward by JONATHAN AMES. SCHMUCK is an anthology featuring art by 23 great cartoonists, including; Nick Bertozzi, Gregory Benton, Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, Noah Van Sciver, Leland Purvis, Sean Pryor, Bobby Timony, Shamus Beyale, Ryan Alexander-Tanner, George Schall, Nathan Schreiber, Stephen Destefano, Jon Allen, Christa Cassano, Kevin Colden, Tony Salmons, George Jurard, Omar Angulo, Pierce Hargan,  Skuds Mckinley, James O Smith, Tim Ogline and cover by Joseph Remnant.

SMOKE by Gregory Benton

September 2015

64-pages. Full color.

After an accident on an industrial farm unhinges two young brothers from reality, they are guided through a weird and wonderful journey by Xolo, the mythological protector of souls.

BEEF WITH TOMATO by Dean Haspiel

September 201

5
96-pages. B+W comix and essays. (published by Alternative Comics)

A native New York bruiser is fed up with life in the dregs of a drug-addled Alphabet City where his neighbors are shut-ins and his bicycle is always getting stolen. He escapes from Manhattan to make a fresh start in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, only to face a new strain of street logic — where most everything he encounters is not as it seems. Emmy Award-winning artist Dean Haspiel returns to his semi-autobiographical roots with BEEF WITH TOMATO, where he explores the emotional truths between prime and primate.

THE VAGABONDS #4 by Josh Neufeld

March 2015

24-pages. Full color.

Josh Neufeld’s The Vagabonds #4 serves up a spicy blend of journalism, social commentary, memoir, and literary fiction. This issue features Neufeld’s story of racial profiling at the U.S./Canadian border and three collaborations with Neufeld’s wife, writer Sari Wilson. Throw in a couple of light-hearted travel tips, and The Vagabonds #4 is chock-full of the thought-provoking and witty comics Neufeld is known for.

HEART-SHAPED HOLE by Dean Haspiel

April 2015

24-pages. Full color.

Billy Dogma and Jane Legit punch the apocalypse right in the kisser as their eternal war of woo breaks a Trip City-wide hymen.

SECRET SAUCE COMIX Vol.1 by Seth Kushner and various artists

April 2015

28-pages. Full color.

Seth Kushner’s new anthology features a mix of fumetti/cosplay, indie/sci-fi, and Silver-age inspired heroes by way of THE BROOKLYNITE, drawn by Shamus Beyale, COSTUMED CHARACTERS, layouts by Dean Haspiel, and YOUTOPIA, illustrated by Charles Stewart.

Hang Dai’s previous books are also available

SCHMUCK COMIX #1
–Seth Kushner’s semi-autobio webcomic gets a print edition with three stories written by Seth and drawn by Jon Allen, Shamus Beyale and Noah Van Sciver. Cover by Gregory Benton.
PSYCHOTRONIC COMIX is Dean Haspiel’s anthology of memoir and Silver Age inspired genre featuring The Red Hook, Tommy Rocket, A-Okay Cool, and NY Stories.
FORCE OF NATURE by Gregory Benton, follows an artist through a lush forest as he searches for a lost sketchbook.
THE VAGABONDS #3
–After an eight-year hiatus, Josh Neufeld’s The Vagabonds returns with its third issue — now published by Hang Dai! Many things have changed in the interim: Neufeld produced three books, became a father, and won a year-long journalism fellowship. This issue highlights Neufeld’s journalistic work over the past few years, including reportage on Hurricane Sandy, the Arab Spring, the education wars (with writer Adam Bessie), and the life of a “comics journalist.”
STAKE–
A lone woman fights the odds in this no-holds-barred short companion piece to B+F by Gregory Benton.
POCKET BOOK 2 by Gregory Benton
Drawn from life, pages from Gregory Benton’s sketchbooks create a loose narrative. Travel through the NYC subway, take in a concert or two, and wash up on the beach.

While we were enjoying Comic Arts Brooklyn this year, my partner Marguerite Van Cook and I took a break from the excitement of promoting our new Fantagraphics Book The Late Child and Other Animals to go across the street to a little coffee bar and have a snack. The young counterperson noted the influx of odd personages hauling portfolios and piles of comics and asked, “is that a convention?”
I replied, “Well, a convention is more like one of those huge things with wrestlers, porn stars and superhero comics, all mixed together with a lot of cosplayers. This is more of a gathering of especially individualistic birds in the alt/lit comics scene. I guess you could call it a ‘murder’ of cartoonists.”
She laughed and asked about the origin of that phrase, which usually describes a flock of crows. But not to further elaborate that conversation, what follows is a review sampling of comics, many of them with poetical aspects, that I got at CAB and other recent releases. Note that I don’t actually try to kill my subjects, but rather to remark on their positive aspects, wherever possible.

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Jungle Book by Harvey Kurtzman (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse, $24.99)

A rare solo effort by the auteuristic creator of E.C.’s two excellent war comics titles Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, working in the satiric mode he initiated for Mad. Now, I do very much like Kurtzman’s solo work; see Fantagraphics’ recent collection of most of his solo E.C. stories, Corpse on the Imjin (which also contains a smattering of his odd, briefer collaborations, like those with Alex Toth and Joe Kubert). His own drawings have a powerful thrust and direct emotionality that can be lost or greatly altered when filtered through the sensibilities of the artists charged to re-illustrate his layouts. In Jungle Book, which was originally released by Ballantine Books in 1959 as a dingy, downscale paperback, Kurtzman’s targets include a jazz/noir mashup, a TV western and most impressively, in “The Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite”, a cutting sendup of the fierce sexism that polluted the offices of his former employer, ex-Marvel Comics owner Martin Goodman. This brilliant strip is nonetheless disparaged as “weak” by famed misogynist and Kurtzman discovery R. Crumb, in the afterthought conversation between the underground artist and Peter Poplaski that cabooses this otherwise beautifully-produced hardcover reprint volume.

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Andre the Giant: Life and Legend by Box Brown (First Second, $7.99)

Brown’s biography of wrestling star Andre Roussimoff joins a small group of comics masterpieces that deal with this most theatrical of sports, from Jaime Hernandez’s Whoa Nellie from 2000 to a series of tongue-in-cheek horror collaborations by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben in more recent years, including their 2011 graphic novella House of the Living Dead. Brown’s is a remarkably consistent effort with effective graphic sequences such as the one pictured above and I also admire his restrained handling of the heavily staged fight scenes, as well as his unusual architectural establishing shots. Brown’s stark, spare and precise cartooning create a unique mood, as they contextualize Andre’s success with a tragic acknowledgement of the unrelenting sense of otherness and diminished opportunities for social interaction that he experiences due to his exceedingly unusual scale; as well as his size’s harsh repercussions on his health.

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Fear My Dear: A Billy Dogma Experience by Dean Haspiel (Z2 Comics, $19.95)

The pair of poetic graphic stories in Fear, My Dear reflect Dino’s unfettered physicality and passionate persona. Since winning an Emmy award for his TV collaboration with Jonathan Ames, Bored to Death and The Alcoholic, their graphic novel from Vertigo, Haspiel has if anything become bolder and more exuberant. For this nicely produced hardcover from Josh Frankel’s new Z squared imprint, the artist uses a four-panels-per-page grid format and a monochromatic color scheme (red in the first piece, yellow and orange in the second, both with an elegant use of white for emphasis) to further define the relationship between his creator-owned characters Billy Dogma and Jane Legit. Their romance haunts post-apocalyptic urban rubble and breaks through to a star-crossed dreamscape, only to end up where they knew they must: together.

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How to Pool and Other Comics by Andrea Tsurumi (self-published, not priced)

Marguerite and I used to bask our way through the East Village dog days at the Pit Street Pool, and more recently as guests of the Miami Book Fair, we whiled away every spare moment by the steamy roof pool at our hotel. So, I can totally relate to the lead piece in Tsurumi’s new minicomic, wherein the artist collects a variety of witty graphic vignettes about group soakings in fluoridated waters, among other delicately drawn ironies and anthropomorphisms.

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Inkbrick #1 by Rothman, Sullivan, Kearney, Tunis, et al (Inkbrick, not priced)

This pocket-sized anthology of comics that incorporate, or are adapted from, poetry is made up of remarkable short stories done in a variety of mediums that range from full color to black & white. Immediate standouts for me are Paul K. Tunis’s watery montages for “Avenge Me, Eavesdropper,” Gary Sullivan’s oblique ink rendering of horrific Asian mythologies, “Black Magic”; Simone Kearney’s whimsically etched “Mobilization”; and editor Alexander Rothman’s “Keeping Time” (pictured above), a piece apparently finished in colored pencils that inventively expresses non-visual sensory impressions such as sound, smell and touch.

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The Graveyard Book, Volumes 1 and 2 by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell et al (Harper Collins, $19.99 each)

Although The Graveyard Book continues Neil Gaiman’s anti-collaborative self-hype at the expense of his artist partners, I do appreciate P. Craig Russell’s adaptations of Gaiman’s stories into comics form. Russell’s elegant cartooning and storytelling are paced far better than if Gaiman had scripted; it worked beautifully for Murder Mysteries, Coraline and The Dream Hunters. Now, for Gaiman’s morbidly charming tale of a live boy shielded from a cabal of serial killers by the shades of the deceased occupants of a cemetery and raised by them to young adulthood, Russell acts artistically in a way similar to Kurtzman’s E.C. methodology: he adapts the text and does layouts; the finishing artists serve as illustrators. This makes for a surprisingly smooth and consistent read. I particularly admire the polished renderings of Kevin Nowlan (seen above), Scott Hampton, Jill Thompson and the Russell-miming Galen Showman; and although a somewhat discordant note is sounded by the grotesqueries of Tony Harris, the whole is unified by colorist Lovern Kindzierski and illuminator Rick Parker, who hand-lettered the text, for me a visual treat in these days of page-deadening digital fonts.

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Lazarus #1-9 by Greg Rucka, Michael Lark and Santi Arcas (Image Comics, $2.99 each)

I drew one of Greg Rucka’s first comics stories (“Guts” in DC/Vertigo’s Flinch #8, 2000), but it seems to me that the writer doesn’t take as much advantage as he might of the properties that are unique to comics—almost everything he does might work just as well if not better as TV shows. In his 2012 collaboration with Matthew Southworth, Stumptown, it is Southworth’s expressive drawing that provides most of the interest and its most effective use of the medium is that the artist rendered Vol 2, #4 with a Toth-esque sideways, widescreen layout. For Lazarus, a story of a female assassin in a dystopian, nearly medieval America run by a select group of powerful families that is absorbing enough and has had some striking moments, but still often has a feeling of deja vu about it, a lot of the heavy lifting is provided by artist Michael Lark’s cinematic near-photorealism, accomplished in collaboration with Santi Arcas’ hi-tech color graphics.

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Thought Bubble #4 by Kot & Sampson, Lim & Rios, Starkings & Sale et al (Image Comics, $3.99)

This color tabloid is a showcase for the participants in the UK’s Leeds Comic Art Festival. My favorite piece is a sort of gentle advisory poem that in its course expresses a goal that many sensitive artists hold dear: that of “making things that help other people feel less alone.” It is the work of the writer of Image’s fascinating rotating-artist series Zero, Ales Kot, expressively drawn with upended, widescreen and oblique imagery by Alison Sampson, who just won a British Comic Award for emerging talent; and nicely colored by Jason Wordie. Also notable: a beautiful page by Hwei Lin and Emma Rios; and an Elephantmen strip written by Richard Starkings and elegantly rendered in ink washes by Tim Sale.

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Nightworld #s 1-4 by Adam McGovern, Paolo Leandri & Dominic Regan (Image Comics $3.99 each)

A tale of questing, embattled superhero-ish spirits, Nightworld manages to not only convey an approximation of the look of a Jack Kirby comic book, but it also comes closer than anything else I have seen to capturing something of the spirit of that master’s fierce and restless creativity. Artist Leandri hits a spot somewhere between majoring in Kirby, minoring in Steranko and echoing the early work of Barry Smith, back in the day when he was emulating Jack. Leandri’s spreads can look remarkably as if they were actually drawn by Kirby and his character designs and action passages likewise (see example above), without ever feeling as appropriated, or as forced, as those by some other artists who attempt to adhere as closely to the same model. These comics are colored by Regan with an oddly chosen palette that, again, is reminiscent of Kirby’s psychedelic experiments with Dr. Martin’s dyes. Moreover and significantly, writer McGovern’s poetic voice uniquely grasps a sort of post-traumatized and humane melancholy of narrative, the most tragic scenes of which are appropriately followed and leavened in a Shakespearean mode by bursts of frenetic humor, that can be seen in Kirby’s best writing.

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The Beat took pictures at CAB 2014! Some of them are Hipstamatic. Live with it. This was a good show, as usual. I came back with a bag full of books and immediately started reading them, one of the virtues of the home show. Although jam packed the show was surmountable, and I thought I would go once around the room and take photos of every one so I would have good file photos for when someone wins the Nobel Prize or marries Taylor Swift. This plan did not go as well as anticipated as you will see.

The cotillion for young cartoonists was arranged by experience. It takes a few years to get to tyro.

This book, The Jacket, by Kristen Hall and Dasha Tolstikova is lovely. Published by Enchanted Lion.

Enchanted Lion publisher Claudia Z. Bedrick on the right, I forgot the young fellow’s name alas.

That’s Laura Lannes on the left, cartoonist of the mini comic The Basil Plant which got a rave review on the Comics Journal the other day which had about 200 times more words than the comics. but sometimes that’s how it works. She’s good! On the right is…another cartoonist from the Paper Rocket studio whose hand cleverly covered his name badge. I’m really awful with names, people.

Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth spring into action as Paul Karasik looks on and Olivier Schwauren sketches away. This show was action packed!

Secret Acres creators. One of them is Theo Elsworth. Help me out here, people!

Sophie Yanow and Sam Alden are shocked to see all the action at the show. These guys have moved beyond Tyro class even!

People looked at comics sometimes buying them.

I was trying out this new Hipstamatic filter I just bought. A little too blue?

The animated Leslie Stein.

John Pham was at the show! I didn’t even know he was going to be there!

The mad talented Lala Albert. Her new comic from Breakdown Press was a sellout.

Patrick Kyle, returned from his tour more or less intact.

Dean Haspiel and Z2 Publisher Josh Frankel.

Nick Bertozzi is chatting to SVA’s Keith Mayerson, I believe, That’s David Mazzucchelli in the hat but don’t worry you’ll get a better look at that later. Bertozzi has developed quite a varied shelf of books. I adore his latest one, Shackleton

Gregory Benton of Hang Dai and Target.

Jillian Tamaki, Keren Katz and Mazzucchelli. David and I embarrassed Jillian by telling her how amazing her work in This One Summer is, and then David explained how tiny gestures can changes every drawing. A collection of Jillian’s funny and painful SuperMutant Magic Academy is coming in the Spring from D&Q.

I know this isn’t a very good photo, but CAB is full of magical moments like Keren Katz yakking with Ben Katchor while James Romberger and Marguerite van Cook stand nearby.

I grabbed a bite with tireless Torsten Adair at this little sandwich shop called re.Union which was around the corner from the church. Their sandwiches were JAMMIN’ but everyone turned backlit. Scott Eder of the Scott Eder Gallery was at the next table and we passed a pleasant half hour or so talking about shows and art.

Here’s the Breakdown Press gang, which is, I believe Simon Hacking and Tom Oldham. Breakdown is a small English publisher and they’ve put out works by Cossé, Conor Willumsen, Connor Stechschulte, Lala Albert, Joe Kessler and Seiichi Hayashi. They are kind of killing it. Seriously, loved every book I got from them. They also filled me in on some of the background of the UK’s fast growing indie scene. (Thought Bubble is already on!) I pointed out that once the English think something is cool, American hipsters have to go along, so all our hopes rest on these guys. They also told me a possibly apocryphal story about a cartoonist who had spent the night on a park bench and still managed to make a mini comic in the process.

Karl Stevens! He’s backed by Sam Henderson.

Action Austin English! Those Domino Books people totally use a hurry up offense.

Of course an actual wedding was going on at the church. What would a comics show be without a wedding nearby?

Adrian Tomine. A new issue of OPtic Nerve is on tap for 2015 he told me.

Annie Koyama and Gary Groth exemplify the love that is CAB.

Flash Forward to Day 2! There was some confusion over people thinking that there would be books for sale on Sunday, but there weren’t Only panels. Here’s Paul Karasik talking to Art Spiegelman and Roz Chast. This was a blockbuster panel by any definition, and I love Paul Karasik, but I kind of wish more had been devoted to the two talking about their parents. I don’t mean to gripe. Karasik put together a marvelous slideshow of both their work and of course both Chast and Spiegelman were witty and wonderful.

Then Josh Bayer interviewed Raymond Pettibon, the famed punk artist. This was a priceless, you-had-to-be-there moment as Bayer would ask a question and Pettibon would go off on an amazing rant about something, every line quotable. (I put a few really goods ones on Twitter.) It was a pretty unstructured talk but Bayer knows Pettibon well and quickly rushed through a slideshow that included work by Harold Gray and Jack Kirby, both obvious influences. Petibon clearly has comics hopes and dreams (Caniff and Frank Robbins were also cited as influences.) but luckily came up at a time when someone of his talents could make a ton of money doing commercial art and selling paintings.

If I may shift into diary mode here for a moment (I wasn’t already?) I experienced one of those weird time circles. Back when I lived in LA I went to a blockbuster show at MOCA that included Robert Williams, Pettibon, and Manuel Ocampo among others. It was called Helter Skelter: LA Art in the 90s, and it was a pretty incredible show, I have to say. The work of Pettibon and Ocampo and Williams very clearly referenced comics imagery in a respectful way. This was long before comics were as accepted as they are now, but I saw clear flashes of it back then. A few months later I was at that cafe in Silverlake we all used to hang out at (Jeebus what was it called?) with Phil Yeh and Alfredo Alcala and Ocampo and his fellow Filipino art crowd, because it turned out Ocampo idolized Alcala and the other cartoonists. Anyway flash forward 24 years, and Bayer asked Pettibon if he liked the Filipino comics school, and he said “Yeah, Alcala and…” So, see, everyone knows every one!

I saw Robert Boyd at the show and he was taking notes at this presentation. I look forward to his notes on the event because he knows a lot more about art than I do.

For a finale, Pettibon did a live drawing based on a Jack Kirby drawing of Spider-Man. It was awesome. CAB was awesome.

You can see the finished drawing here. WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK! REPEAT NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

As reported yesterday, the Ice Bucket Challenge fad is hitting comics and it’s spreading like wildfire. The viral fad involves having a bucket of ice dumped over you to create more awareness of ALS — Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis— a “progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord” and can cause total paralysis.

Those taking the challenge posted results to Facebook, which will not allow me to embed the videos because Facebook. But here’s a list of the latest to take the plunge:

Dean Haspiel, who did it sirtless, as I hardly need even mention.

Cryptozoic’s John Nee

Tess Fowler, whose nephew actually suffers from ALS.

Dynamite’s Nick Barrucci

ComicWow!’s Josh Geppi

Have you taken the challenge? Link it up in the comments! And please be careful. We don’t want any William Henry Harrison’s here.

Straight from the offices of Publishers Weekly, it’s More to Come! Your podcast source of comics news and discussion starring The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald.

In this week’s interview special, Publisher’s Weekly’s Calvin Reid interviews indie comics master Dean Haspiel about his beginnings as well as his latest work, including The Fox from Archie Comics and Fear, My Dear: A Billy Dogma Experience from new publisher Z2 Comics. Haspiel, known for his work on such books as “The Quitter” with Harvey Pekar and “The Alcoholic” with Jonathan Ames is also a co-founder of the web comics collective Act-I-Vate. All that and more on PW Comics World’s More To Come podcast.

Listen to this episode in streaming here, download it direct here and catch up with our previous podcasts on the PublishersWeekly website, or subscribe to More To Come on iTunes

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This week’s edition of PW Comics World contains news of a newish publishing company: Z2 Comics, formerly Zip Comics, which put out the Eisner-nominated Cleveland by Harvey Pekar and Joseph Remnant last year. It’s headed up by Josh Frankel and the first two projects will be a new edition of Paul Pope’s long out of print Escapo comic, and a collection of Dean Haspiel’s webcomics, Fear My Dear: A Billy Dogma Book.

Frankel told PW he wanted “a new start” and decided to rename and rebrand the company. “Our focus will be eclectic,” Frankel said, “We want to publish books that make money but also publish genre works that feature fine storytelling and great hardcover production.” Frankel said that he’s a fan of books by publishers like Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, Image, and Drawn & Quarterly, “and while I like some superheroes, I like indie-focused books and those publishers are my inspiration.”

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On March 21^st 2013 at the Union Hall bar, restaurant, and music venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, comics creator and TRIP CITY co-curator Dean Haspiel and comedian/actress Katharine Heller launched what may be the first of several salon events featuring comics, comedy, prose, and musical performances entitled “NIGHT JOB”. Though it was a new venture, neither Haspiel nor Heller are strangers to the stage. They were joined by stand-up comedian and writer Molly Knefel of the internet radio show RADIO DISPATCH, indie cartoonist Meghan Turbitt, author Reverend Jen of the long-running “Rev Jen’s Anti-Slam” performance event. Also performing were political satirist and stand-up comedian Angry Bob, and the music group Two Beards One Heart, including  Jeffrey Burandt (aka Jef UK of Americans UK), and Peter Boiko, supported by John Mathias and John Thomas Robinette III.

[Haspiel and Heller host the salon]

Though the salon opened to a full basement venue, audience members probably didn’t know quite what to expect from NIGHT JOB, however they might have known some of the performers by reputation. The term “salon” often implies multiple genres in the mix, and NIGHT JOB presented quite a range. Though each of these types of performance have the potential to be very entertaining on their own, it’s a challenge to combine them and create a sense of a cohesive event that, collectively, develops its own personality. NIGHT JOB found its way by emphasizing the raw power of very personal content from its salon members.

[Molly Knefel]

Knefel opened with a stand-up routine spoofing the “war on women” in congress last autumn, pointing out that a “war on anuses” would have had even the most conservative public official scrambling to sign up in protest. Her rapid-fire delivery and observational humor had the audience engaged from the outset, but her sense of personal commitment to the subject matter as a thinking person translating impressions of a bizarre world set the tone for the evening.

[Katharine Heller]

Heller read a selection from her recent project featuring “erotica” geared toward Republican sensibilities, “Tickle the Elephant”, and ingenious attempt to get inside the minds of what appeals to conservative women particularly. Turning the lingo of the senate floor and government catchphrases into turn-ons relentlessly, Heller narrated from the perspective of a conservative seduced by liberalism into a sexual common ground. Heller revealed a rather in-depth knowledge of politics on both sides of the party schism in her artistry, and in her mix of satire and humor, suggested dialogue is possible even in the most heated debates.

[A Turbitt comic panel]

Turbitt presented and performed a wide range of indie comix that appear online, increasingly irreverent to social taboos, particular in expressing women’s lives. From bathroom scenes of an intimate nature to things that most people find adorable but only annoy her, she pushed the envelope on expression and used the comic-panel reveal for shock-value. Her autobio approach struck many of the same chords as Knefel and Heller’s performances, bringing out the sense that discussing deeply personal subjects is still one of the most direct ways to reach an audience, who may be surprised to find out how much they have in common with the stories they hear and see.

[Meghan Turbitt]

Haspiel’s comix performance of “Awful George” from his series STREET CODE took the audience deep inside the strangeness, and the horror of urban stories, reflecting his own autobiographical reaction to witnessing a make-shift attempt to save a hoard of cats that had been wilfully neglected in an apartment, only to be topped by the discovery of a mummified corpse, begging the question, “How do you deal with these kind of realities?”

["Awful George" panel by Haspiel]

The answer from Haspiel is clearly “by expressing them and reaching out to readers”. His debut performance of a newly created Tommy Rocket comic, a spin-off from his BILLY DOGMA web comix, spoke to the twisted aspects of love, and the realities of failure and regret. Haspiel never pulls any punches in his comics, autobio or not, and these hammered home the role of authenticity in performance; getting up in front of a crowd to read your comics demands a kind of soul-baring stance that hits home for the audience.

[Dean Haspiel]

Reverend Jen took soul baring to a whole new level by reading from her unpublished novel, memoirs of her life as a prostitute attempting to support her artistic endeavors as a painter. She’s known for her extreme honesty during readings, and her narrative plumbed the depths of tragedy and suffering possible in what seems like an everyday world. Her description of images, as well as emotions, made for a stellar performance of prose. Rev Jen’s motivation in performing, to “get stuff out” of oneself actually also served the function of engaging the audience emotionally and reminding them, perhaps, of human resilience along the way.

[Rev Jen]

Angry Bob, true to his moniker, took on the role of voicing, like Knefel, Heller, and Turbitt, many of the things that people think, but don’t say out loud for fear of being ostracized as freakish. The truth, of course, is that they are not alone and everyone is wonder what’s considered “acceptable” to think or say in social settings. He described himself as someone “rooting through the garbage for shiny objects” like a racoon or other scavenger, and the objects he held up for inspection at NIGHT JOB were the ludicrous aspects of Reality TV, the curse of failed opportunities, and the general rage-inducing capabilities of young children, particularly in public. Angry Bob’s signature delivery, a high-octane rant that frequently addresses audience members directly, had their equally signature outcome: inspiring absolute hilarity at NIGHT JOB.

[Angry Bob]

The evening’s performances closed with the strikingly independent tones of Two Beards One Heart which also managed to match the ambiance of the previous salon members’ presentations. Not just in musical composition, whose sounds were so original as to suggest that the “personal” can be evoked as equally in sound as in words and images, but also in lyrics, Two Beards managed to create their own singular message.

[Two Beards One Heart]

Their first song illustrated rising angst through lyrics despite its melodic construction, while the second contrasted the poetic, upbeat aspects of love with bigger realities and banal conflicts. Burandt’s vocals, far from predictable, were particularly engaging, and contributed to a sense of individualistic expression of life’s perplexing highs and lows.

[Jeffrey Burandt]

One of the most winning aspects of NIGHT JOB, aside from his cohesion as a salon of the personal made public, was the fact that Haspiel asked, repeatedly, if anyone else would like to perform their work, friend or stranger alike. It suggested an open-door to artists of any genre who also had something to share. The tone of the evening, celebrating unique perspectives with communal implications, was as well suited to comics as music and comedy.

[Haspiel delivers an open invitation]

Setting comics alongside other genres in performance is not a new practice, but it’s becoming increasingly popular, perhaps because of the rise of self-publishing and internet sharing of creative work.  As comics find their footing among other artistic modes, it’s appropriate to start asking what comics have in common with other formats of expression, and what makes them particularly powerful for self-expression. NIGHT JOB did an excellent job of illustrating the point. Performance art forms are about a meeting of minds between the performer and the audience, and many genres already push the boundaries of inter-personal communication, comics included.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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If you’ve been following the history of the Asbury Park Comicon, which opened only a year ago in March of 2012, you know it’s been a strange, yet rather astonishing ride, but imagine how much stranger it must be for founder and indie comics creator Cliff Galbraith. What started in a bowling alley turned music venue and local hangout, Asbury Lanes, has become a major testament to demand for Comic Cons in New Jersey, and also a statement about the desires and tastes of con-goers who have relished the indie vibe of Galbraith’s brainchild. After a highly successful second Con in September of 2012, Galbraith announced that the Con would move to the much larger and even more historic venue of Asbury Park Convention Hall for its third event on March 30^th 2013.

Then Superstorm Sandy struck, devastating the seaside town of Asbury Park, leaving the future of the Con in question. Against some difficult odds, the Con forged ahead, and Galbraith faced another kind of storm- media frenzy- over the upcoming Con. It’s fair to say that his phone has been ringing off the hook as local press as well as The New York Times have been trying to get the scoop on what looks to be a growing New Jersey institution as Asbury Park Comicon nears its biggest event yet. Dozens of prominent guests will be flanking this full-blown gala of a Con, and the Con will also be featuring panels and contests. Galbraith hasn’t had a moment’s rest since all this started more than a year ago, and he finished up several other interviews just in time to answer some questions about all this Con madness, and how it fits into his own life, for The Beat.

Hannah Means-Shannon: Can you remember the moment when the idea for starting a Comic Con in New Jersey first occurred to you? How wild did the idea seem at the time?

Cliff Galbraith: Maybe I’ve always wanted to run my own con. I’ve been to enough of them over the last few decades. A lot of them were pretty shabby. Customer service was pretty awful. I’ve been to cons where the promoter never came around and so much as said hello or how’s it going. Some were downright rude or deceitful.

On a Sunday in the summer of 2011, I stopped into the bowling alley/rock club Asbury Lanes — they were having a little record fair in there. I knew a few of my friends would be there selling and buying records or drinking beers so I figured I’d get away from my drawing table for the afternoon and see what was happening. My friend and neighbor Robert Bruce was selling an assortment of rare rock and jazz records and some underground comix. I remember looking at someone rooting through a white box of records, and I turned to Rob and I said “Where else have I seen somebody doing that? Reminds me of people at a comic convention digging through long boxes.” We laughed, but I walked around a bit and I kept thinking about it. If they could sell records in this place, why not comics? My friend Jenn Hampton was the manager, so I asked her if we could have a comic con at the Lanes. Nine months later we had the first Asbury Park Comicon.

HM-S: What’s the strangest task you’ve ever had to do in order to get a Con running or keeping it on track?

CG: Partner with Rob Bruce! We’re friends, but business-wise we’re been very independent, lone wolves. But it’s been a great experience and there’s absolutely no way I could’ve done all of this or come up with all the solutions on my own. It’s been Cliff and Rob’s Excellent Adventure.

[Rob Bruce and Cliff Galbraith]

HM-S: Why Asbury as a location for the Con? 

CG: People launch cons in New Jersey all the time. Some have been going on for years, but they don’t grow. I think the secret ingredient in throwing a Con is location — pick a fun destination. That’s really what set San Diego up for success early on. Who didn’t want to go somewhere with beautiful weather with plenty of bars, restaurants, hotels, a beach? That’s enticing.

So there needs to be something other than the Con once you walk outside. That’s my standard. I don’t want to go to some Con near an airport or far away from everything. I don’t want to go to some little hotel hermetically sealed in away from the world. Lots of Cons are downright depressing. They have no personality. Just putting a bunch of artists and dealers in a room and charging admission doesn’t make it fun.

[The Asbury Park Boardwalk at dusk]

HM-S: What were reactions like to the first Con at Asbury Lanes?
CG: Everyone had a great time. Most people sold lots of books. I was stunned. I just wanted to put on a little event and not screw up, just have a fun day. But the venue was a real hit. The exhibitors who’d never been to Asbury Park, who’d never been to Asbury Lanes fell in love with it. I’m spoiled, the Lanes are part of my world, but it’s really a cool old place. And there’s a bar. We played old punk tunes and Serge Gainsbourg, Nelson Riddle, soul, and stoner rock. It was more like a party — with comics.

HM-S: What obstacles did you face launching that first Con at the Lanes?
CG: It’s always tough at first to get someone with a name to attract fans. I think the first guy I called was Evan Dorkin. I always dug his work, and I’d known him for years — but more importantly he was someone who would get what I was trying to do. Evan and Sarah Dyer jumped right in. Then they told Steph Buscema. Jamal Igle was another old friend, so I contacted him early on. Those guys trusted me — that was important. But getting talent can be tough early on. Then there’s talent that doesn’t show up, there are flakes in this business and it just goes with the territory.

The biggest shock was that two months before our first Con, Asbury Lanes was sold. I know it sounds crazy, but I never got a written contract. I made a deal with my friend who was the manager. At one point, she didn’t know if she was going to still have a job or whether the new owners would honor our deal or want more money. It was scary, because this was our first time and if we screwed this up nobody would ever trust us again. It all worked out and it was a great day.

[APCC at the Asbury Lanes]

HM-S: What’s your personal philosophy behind Comic Cons?
CG: Don’t be boring. Don’t be predictable. Don’t call yourself a Comic Con and fill the bill with wrestlers, actors, and other people who have nothing to do with comics. Respect and honors those who make comics, especially those who came before us. I see a lot of bullshit at cons and I just don’t get it. If somebody wants an autograph of somebody from Twilight or some guy who played a storm trooper 30 years ago — that’s their business, but it really has nothing to do with comics. It detracts and devalues comics as something that is supposed to be celebrated. My feeling is if you’re not here for the comics then shove off. Go to a horror con, go to a sci-fi con.

 HM-S: Why do you think we need Comic Cons, as a society?

CG: When my parents were kids the big thing was the circus coming to town. That’s disappeared, and now we have the Comic Con coming to town. Look at every city — there’s a con everywhere. People love it — its like Woodstock, Lollapalooza, county fair, chili cook-offs, boat shows, car shows, record fairs, film festivals, people want to get together with those who share their passion. They want to spend a day with their kids, meet new friends, make a discovery. It’s an amazing social phenomenon, and it’s in its infancy.

HM-S: What did you grow up reading? Any favorite comics or characters?
CG: My mom grew up in a candy store in Newark, N.J., and she spent her time drawing pictures of movie stars from magazines that were on the newsstand. She also loved comics. She introduced me to Superman when I was about four years old. She also taught me to draw. She got me a subscription to SUPERBOY and I looked forward to those comics every month. Then one day when I was getting a haircut, I picked up a copy of FANTASTIC FOUR that was in the barber shop — this was around 1965. The Kirby art kind of creeped me out at first, but I was fascinated. Joe Kubert’s HAWKMAN was a favorite. Of course BATMAN. CREEPY, EERIE, FAMOUS MONSTERS and hot rod magazines with stuff by Ed Roth and George Barris. I also read a lot of science fiction — it was a pretty classic age with Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and I read Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes after seeing the movie. I graduated from super heroes to MAD. Then National Lampoon. At some point I found some underground comix in a head shop in Menlo Park, N.J. — they blew my teenage mind. Then Heavy Metal Magazine and Punk Magazine completed the process of completely warping my mind.

HM-S: What are your biggest influences as a comics creator?
CG: More of MAD than I used to acknowledge. I think it was an early influence in the way I saw a lot of stupid things in society. It was much tougher on politicians and corporations back in the 60′s and 70′s. I would try to draw like Mort Drucker when I was a kid. Kirby is an influence when I’m feeling lazy, when I think I’ve done enough — I think about the amount of work he put out in a day and I’m embarrassed. He keeps me going back to do a bit more before turning out the lights. I love Moebius. Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, Crumb, Rick Griffin, Jack Davis. I go back to Will Eisner when I get stuck on a drawing that’s not working — I’m still learning from looking at his drawings, I get answers from his panels. But when I created Partyasaurus, Beachasaurus, and all the Saurus characters back in the 80′s, I did some sort of R.O. Bleckman thing with the wiggly, broken lines. It was very successful, but I never revisited that style again.

HM-S:  It’s been a winding road for you career-wise. How does Con creating fit into your life, looking back?

CG:  I came back to comics after ten years — at one point I was in really bad shape with Lyme disease, but that’s a whole other story. I started making RAT BASTARD comics again, just selling them at cons. I didn’t even go through Diamond — I just wanted to put something out and do some cons. Then I started working with my wife on UNBEARABLE, a totally different style but a lot of fun to draw. I was finally getting back into it, making comics. I had a few issues written I was drawing consistently and then this damn Asbury Park Comicon came along. The first one wasn’t too bad, but now with a much bigger venue, more guests, more exhibitors, ads, making a TV commercial, doing interviews with newspapers, and building a website, designing posters, it became a full time job. I didn’t realize it at first, but I sacrificed my art to build the Con. Which is okay, since April 1st I’m back at the drawing board and making comics again.

HM-S: Asbury Park was pretty hard hit by Superstorm Sandy. What was your own experience of the storm like?

CG: The other day I found pictures of my wife Judie and I at Convention Hall on the balcony making silly faces trying to stand up against the wind the day before the storm. I felt embarrassed that we were joking about it and twenty-four hours later there would be so much devastation. We could’ve have known, but I couldn’t look at those pictures. The fact that Convention Hall is still standing is amazing, but it did sustain a lot of damage.

My own experience with the storm was terror. There’s three giant pine trees in my yard that I was certain would crush us in the night. I felt like the roof on our house would be torn off any minute the whole time. We had no power for two weeks. We tried to stay in our home and tough it out with no power. I could draw during daylight. We had little parties with the neighbors and pooled our resources.  After 7 or 8 days, it got too tough. It was cold. There wasn’t much to do once the sun went down.  We had to go stay with my parents. But after a few days, I felt like I should be putting Led Zeppelin posters up in the basement — in other words, I felt like I was a teenager again. My parents were great about it, but you really can’t go back and live with your parents.

We were fortunate — we got to go back to our house and it was like nothing had happened other than we had to restock our refrigerator. But only two miles east of us looked like an A-bomb had been dropped. A lot of our friends suffered from that storm. We’ll be doing several things at Asbury Park Comicon to raise money for some of the nonprofits in our area and keep the focus on Sandy victims.

[The Asbury Convention Hall, site of APCC 2013]

HM-S: Were you afraid that damage from Superstorm Sandy might put the kaibosh on Asbury Park Comicon this year?

CG: It actually did. The building was going to be closed down by the city or something. We were told we needed to start thinking about an alternate site. It got pretty bleak. We looked into moving the con to Monmouth Racetrack, or one of the schools in Red Bank. We were desperate.  And then I got a call late one night and they told me we were back in Convention Hall.

HM-S: What’s going on with Asbury Convention Hall? I hear it may not host events in the future after May.

CG: It’s an old building. It’s taken a beating. It had issues before the storm. So now it’s just better to shut down completely and get everything done once and for all. May 1^st, it will be shuttered. We may be one of the last events there. This is a big thing for us to throw a con there — we grew up walking through the Grand Arcade from the boardwalk. I saw The Clash there, boxing, roller derby. To see our event on that marquee is like a dream come true — and it almost didn’t happen.

[Asbury Park Press covers COMIC BOOK MEN and Galbraith's upcoming Con]

HM-S: What’s up for Asbury Con in the future? Is it going to become an even bigger Jersey Con?

CG: We’ll know in a few weeks what the renovation schedule is for Convention Hall. We’d like to announce the dates for 2014 at this the con next week, but I don’t know if that’s quite possible by March 30th. But we’d like to move to late April and do a two day Con. The Berkley Hotel has a series of ballrooms — it’s like The Shining in there. I spoke to them last week. I’d like to keep this show in Asbury Park. Again, it’s the location that really makes a Con special. We’re planning on including more venues, galleries, etc. in the Con. Maybe a cosplay parade on the boardwalk. Put some of the bigger panels in the Paramount Theater.

We also have another big Con in the works for June 2014, but we haven’t finalized the date or exact venue. We’ve floated the ideas with a few comic industry people and we’ve gotten good feedback. The location will surprise a lot of people at first, but it makes sense geographically.

[Poster art for APCC#2 in 2012]

HM-S:  What changes had to be made in the planning process of the con to move it from Asbury Lanes to the Convention Hall this time?
CG: Besides the amount of time Rob and I had to put into it, I’d say the next thing would be the amount of money it takes to launch an event this size. People have no idea what goes into a show like this. Now we’re into things like insurance, security, lighting, sound systems, putting guests in hotels, meals, travel, advertising — the expenses pile up quickly. This is no longer a fun little get-together at the Asbury Lanes with some comics and a few beers, this is a serious business venture.

[Memorable image from APCC #2 in 2012 with Evan Dorkin, Cliff Galbraith, Dean Haspiel, and Larry Hama]

The most important thing I’ve learned about running a show this size is we can’t do it on our own. We had a lot of help. Guys like Danny Fingeroth, Dean Haspiel, Seth Kushner, Chris Irving, Mark Mazz, Dave Ryan, all got us guests that we never would’ve gotten on our own. Eric Grissom built us a great website. Stu Wexler made a TV commercial — and nobody asked for anything in return. Mike [Zapcic] and Ming [Chen] from Comic Book Men have been promoting us for months on their podcast. The people who run Convention Hall have been amazing. They all just want us to succeed — we’ve got some great friends in our corner. We’ve also got some great guests: Al Jaffee, Herb Trimpe, John Holmstrom, Bob Camp, Don McGregor, Jamal Igle, Jay Lynch, Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, Mark Morales, Stephanie Buscema, and Batman producer Michael Uslan. Then there’s a whole indie crew like Box Brown, Josh Bayer, Mike Dawson, Steve Mannion, and lots of others.

I’m really fortunate to be able to do this. To have gotten my health back, to be making comics again and to put on events with so many remarkable people. Sure it’s a lot of work, but I’m having the time of my life!

HM-S: Cliff, I don’t know how you found the time to give us such a detailed insight into your own personal journey envisoning the Asbury Park Comicon with only a few days to go until the biggest APCC yet. But we appreciate your willingness to talk about it so openly and thanks for bringing a Con of this caliber to New Jersey. 

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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Photocomix are strange creatures. They look like a hybrid of a photography medium and a comics format, and when you spot them in the wild you’re never sure whether they arose as some part of a natural evolutionary process in art or if they were the result of some kind of misguided experiment, maybe even one gone wrong. That reaction’s been shaped by encountering low-quality work with vague pretensions at humor, or perhaps offering some behind the scenes reveals about the comics making process. Frozen, melodramatic poses and cheesy dialogue are par for the course. And so, if a reader spots photocomix roaming free online or in a shop, they approach with caution and refuse to get their hopes up regarding quality.

Then there’s FORCEFIELD FOTOCOMIX, which makes you feel guilty for all of that instinctual caution and pre-emptive wariness. It gives you what no one really dares expect or demand from photocomix, a team of seriously talented individuals on a mission to exploit the full potential of the medium. To do this, they decide to spin this collection of comics into a number of genres, covering all the bases and it’s as if they are illustrating future directions for photocomix.

The man behind the camera, someone whose work has defined “serious” photography of the cultural zeitgeist in the past decade and then some, is Seth Kushner, the co-creator of the celebration of comics tradition LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS with Christopher Irving. Kushner’s photo portraits of comics creators in LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS have garnered so much attention that they’ve been scavenged by internet sites repeatedly and Neil Gaiman even chose to use Kushner’s portrait of him as his new dust-jacket image. He’s been working on photocomix for some time now, creating a CulturePOP series for the digital arts salon TRIP CITY, profiling real lives in comics format from author Jonathan Ames to adult film star Stoya, but FORCEFIELD is a departure into the realm of total composition in fictional realities.

During an informal conversation at Hang Dai Studios, where Kushner keeps a tidy computer work station flanked by a few vinyl and action figures, he revealed some of the process behind his striking cover to FORCE FIELD. He staged a full-on photo-shoot to capture the images in his mind by engaging actress Zoe Sloan, as well as a costume designer and a makeup artist, to create a Barbarella homage fused with a direct design reference to a Jim Steranko cover of BLADE RUNNER from Marvel Comics. The Steranko cover, which uses multiple color reduplications of the hero pointing a gun, inspired Kushner to pose Sloan holding, instead, a Super 8 camera in retro style. The metaphor’s impressive: Kushner’s camera is a loaded weapon at the center of the strange narratives contained in FORCEFIELD, capable of directing the reader’s experience, and by using a Super 8 video camera rather than simply a camera, he’s suggesting the role of storytelling.

Kushner’s increasingly open these days to revealing the process behind his work to generate enthusiasm for the forms themselves and encourage others to experiment, as evinced by his recent contribution to TRIP CITY, a blow-by-blow narrative of the steps by which the first comic in the collection, “The Hall of Just Us”, called “Anatomy of a Photocomic”. The story, co-scripted by Emmy Award winning artist Dean Haspiel, led to its own formal photoshoot at the recently hurricane decimated by increasingly resilient Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook. Kushner and Haspiel set about “casting the roles, as we would for a film”, says Kushner, and the co-creators drafted full layouts for the comic before shooting, giving them a “map to follow”.

They created the comic shot for shot, a tale of three “miscreants”, superheroes in a bar chasing a super-powered lady’s attentions, “The Tarot”. After the shoot, time-consuming photo-shopping and comics construction added text, word balloons, and special effects. But all of this description only hints at the visual impact of “The Hall of Just Us”. It’s all about mood, created from strongly color-themed lighting (the pink, blue, and yellow of the cover’s design), and about the off-beat simple hero costumes straight off of Mego action figures or the BATMAN television show of the ‘60’s.

While the heroes posture and ratchet up the bombast, The Tarot figure, portrayed by model and artist Katelan Foisy, brings an eerie presence and substance to the narrative. She can see the future “sometimes”  and sees the other heroes as Tarot figures, commenting “There’s the path you can take or the road you can make”, but she’s really calmly waiting for her “date” known as Señor Amore, portrayed by Haspiel. This is certainly the “romance” genre promised by the cover as one narrative alternative, but it leaves room for reader-interpretation. Superheroes with super powers are still hanging out in a bar, looking for love, for one thing.

“Spiders Everywhere” provides the “horror” also promised by the cover, and again homage to genre comics and films is evident. The narrative and premises are simple- horrific waves of spiders taking over the world, but Kushner plays to the strengths of the photocomix medium by conveying frantic movements and moments of psychological realization in cinematic style.

“Understanding Photocomix”, a visual walk through Kushner’s history with photography and photocomix, which first appeared in American Photo Magazine, supplies the metadata on the very form in which its composed. It also forms a clever narrative bridge between the first chapters of FORCEFIELD and its follow up chapter COMPLEX, by explaining Kushner’s increasing drive to push the boundaries of photocomix in a “full fictionalized graphic novel” that he’d “direct like a movie using actors and locations”. In many ways, FORCEFIELD is the herald of that process, and it’s Volume number “.01” suggests that it’s a forerunner of bigger things to come.

The story COMPLEX: “Luv_Underscores_U”, kicking off Kushner’s work on his dream project of the COMPLEX graphic novel, first appeared in Jimmy Palmiotti’s CREATOR OWNED HEROES #7 alongside Kushner and Irving’s ongoing profiles of indie comics creators (a follow-up project to LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS). It’s a lavishly shot and designed comic which plunges into science-fiction BLADE RUNNER style, another link to FORCEFIELD’s cover image. It constructs multiple virtual realities visually with ethereal attention to detail and emphasizes a governing psychological perspective, a central character keeping all these virtual worlds in motion for the reader. This isn’t far from the role of the camera itself seeming to direct the reader, perhaps FORCEFIELD’s hypothetical Super 8 on the cover itself.

The final chapter of FORCEFIELD, a never before published noir tale, “The Perfect Woman” appears in uncharacteristic emphasis on black and white tones, with hints of color. Kushner’s photography is known for its psychedelic presentation of color through light effects, but also for his more sepulchral, moody hues in portraiture. Here he does with black what he often does with a solid color, making it a rich compositional basis into which he incises featured characters and settings. Like a compelling dime store novel rich with noir tropes, the story pursues an elusive lady in a cityscape from the visual perspective of a narrator. Kushner’s locations for this shoot were clearly exacting, capturing a city of the 1930’s complete with architectural detail. But the reader should have expected that this is a collection of stories with an expicit BLADE RUNNER homage and technology and perception may play as strong a role as the romance of pursuit.This is the “mystery” genre, completing the triad of color themes and pulp homage.

To add to the total design package that is FORCEFIELD FOTOCOMIX, it’s also presented in slick prestige magazine format with card covers, suggesting that photocomix can find their own effective dimensions for publication, in this case somewhere between a traditional comic and a traditional large-format photobook. But the format also speaks to Kushner’s consistent, passionate attention to detail throughout the collection which seems to constantly remind the reader of his fundamental belief in the art behind the form. The photocomix in FORCEFIELD are visually riveting, one might even say mind-altering, but the stories are also expansive, creating strange pocket universes with their own sets of rules and assumptions. Exploring them is part of the intrigue. Seeing FORCEFIELD in the wild is bound to make an impact on our assumptions about what photocomix have been, and more importantly, what they can be as a narrative medium in their own right. Kushner was inspired by comics, photography, and films to launch this project.  In the future, creators might well be saying that they were inspired by FORCEFIELD to take photocomix in equally surprising and mesmerizing directions.

[Kushner answers, "What's the coolest item in your collection?" for Hanzarai.com]

FORCEFIELD FOTOCOMIX Vol.01 will be available for physical sale for the first time at the upcoming Asbury Park Comic Con March 30th, but the limited edition is already available for order through Kushner’s etsy shop.

Title: Seth Kushner’s FORCEFIELD FOTOCOMIX Vol.01/Publisher: Self-Published/Creative Team: Photographer, Seth Kushner/ Design, Seth Kushner and Dean Haspiel/ Writers, Seth Kushner, Dean Haspiel, Chris Miskiewicz/ Edits by Dean Haspiel

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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Autobiographical comics used to be a feature of zines and small private presses, but readers are increasingly able to follow their favorite genre of the comics medium in graphic novel editions from mainstream book publishers. There’s no doubt that the artistic appreciation for autobiography and semi-autobiographical works is on the rise, but amid commentary on layouts, designs, and narrative choices, it’s easy to lose touch with the personalities behind the works and the often difficult waters they navigate to create their comics. At Housing Works Bookstore and Café in Soho, part of the Housing Works charitable organization benefitting those affected by HIV/AIDS and homelessness, four cartoonists weighed in on their life in comics on March 5^th in a panel hosted by comics scholar and author Christopher Irving (LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS, GraphicNYC). The event formed part of “Geek Week” at Housing Works, with copies of speakers’ books donated by publishers for sale to support the charitable organization.

Panelists included Dean Haspiel (BILLY DOGMA, CUBA: MY REVOLUTION), Bob Fingerman (MAXIMUM MINIMUM WAGE, FROM THE ASHES), Laura Lee Gulledge (PAGE BY PAIGE, WILL AND WHIT), and Ethan Young (TAILS) and featured projected slides of their artwork along with readings, commentary, and discussion. Haspiel read “Dumbo” from his STREETCODE series, a tale of extensive personal injury after being “busted” as a thief by an overzealous and perplexed local driver during a film-shoot in Brooklyn and Fingerman read from an unpublished script of issue #11 of his acclaimed MAXIMUM MINIMUM WAGE series (which will appear in the new deluxe edition coming from Image March 20^th) about the trials and tribulations of negative reviews and the dubious creative credits of working for “porno mags”. Gulledge, too, presented previously unseen material from her upcoming (in March) new book WILL and WHIT dealing with the stresses and awkwardness of teen life pursuing artistic expression, while Young read from his series TAILS, featuring cultural and familial clashes over relationships, but also noted that a second printed volume of the previously online series TAILS will be coming soon from Hermes Press.

Each of the cartoonists presenting their work engaged the audience on an emotional level in different ways, showcasing the versatility that makes autobiographical comics so popular. Haspiel’s comic narrated the already inherently absurd scenario of playing a thug in a friend’s film being chased by a costumed superhero an the equally absurd but downright serious impact of being mistaken for a real thief and being mown down by a would-be vigilante on set. Haspiel’s “DUMBO” focused on the psychological shock and mental processes handling the bizarre, and all too physically real situation.

Fingerman’s script handled his experiences working for a “rag” magazine in semi-autobiographical fashion through his avatar “Rob”, with an ear for frank and surprising dialogue between Rob and former co-workers on the subject of a bad review of his comics issued by a replacement writer in Rob’s own former column on the magazine. Through Rob’s dialogue, the audience could hear the character’s increasing fixation and personal struggle with the affront, while other characters commented irreverently on his overblown reactions. The emotions of the situation were powerful, even while comedic in tone.

Gulledge’s selection from WILL and WHIT used limited but realistic dialogue between friends to tease out the tensions in young adult conversations, anxiety in public performances (in this case a puppet show) and the supportive, but complicated role of group friendships. While Haspiel and Fingerman handled subject matter that may have been unfamiliar to many readers, but connected on the level of universal reactions to antagonizing situations, Gulledge presented a universal situation and explored it through the lens of different personality types.

Young’s performance dealt with two major universal themes, family pressures and romantic relationships, but introduced the complicating factor of cultural divides as his character (also named Ethan) engaged in “blunt” conversations with his mother, translated from Cantonese into English, about whether dating a Chinese-American girlfriend was really the right thing for him. Each comics artist preserved a kernel of universal human experience in their works while bringing intricate detail of personal experience into the narrative to render it unique, compelling, and even more visceral. Experiencing the comics as performance, read by their creators, brought an added dimension of reality to the stories. Autobio comics readers often become fans of the “voice” of the cartoonist and feel that they almost know the author/artist personally, but this was a rare chance to hear the comic audibly and experience the comic visually with creator participation.

Christopher Irving took the opportunity to play readers advocate and encourage the panelists to explain how autobiography maps out the gray areas between art and life, asking what the relationship is, exactly, between these creators and their comic avatars. Gulledge explained that her characters are often “different variations” of sides of her personality, and in one of the most memorable phrases from the evening explained that portraying versions of herself in comics encourages her to take risks in expression, making her willing to “drop the baby” being thrown at her if necessary. The allusion was to a situation wherein street urchins might attempt to pick your pocket by throwing a doll at you, pretending it’s a real baby, in the hopes that you’ll be distracted enough to attempt to catch it. “Drop the baby” made for an excellent metaphor for autobiographical cartooning when the creator has to realize the difference between art and real life and take greater risks based on that truth.

Fingerman commented, to the audience’s amusement, that he would “gladly drop a baby”. His reasons for using an avatar named “Rob” rather than his own name, Bob, in MAXIMUM MINUMUM WAGE involved shying away from direct “narcissism” while keeping a certain “weight” of truth alongside the “latitude” for some fictionalization. Like Stephen Colbert’s concept of “truthiness”, he said, his comics get closer to the truth by allowing more freedom of expression than strict autobiography. He also added that after ten years of reflection on MAXIMUM MINIMUM WAGE and working on the new hardcover edition from Image , however, he’s “seriously thinking of coming back to the series and starting it up again”, which provoked a round of enthusiastic applause from the audience.

Haspiel’s own feelings about the difference between autobiographical and semi-autobiographical comics, two genres he has worked with extensively, pivot on his concern that autobiographical comics only allow the reader to act as “voyeur” in someone else’s life. Like Fingerman, Haspiel reflected on the fact that semi-autobiographical narratives enable the creator to zero-in on “emotional truths” that they might not be able to emphasize as fully when sticking purely to facts. His advice to autobiographical or semi-autobiographical cartoonists, generally, is to “get outside” and experience life, making sure you “show up to the party” that is life and take part in order to create compelling stories. Gulledge chimed in that she agreed with Haspiel and Fingerman, that even autobiographical comics are not about the cartoonists life in terms of their purpose, but are about “helping” the reader understand themselves by engaging with real-life situations.

[Image from STREETCODE's "Dumbo" by Haspiel]

Young explained that he feels that his life can, in some ways, seem stereotypical, including his Asian-American heritage, emphasis on city narratives, his real-life situation of quitting college, and even being “self-indulgent” in writing stories designed to “get even” with an ex-girlfriend. But having a relatable life is certainly not a hindrance in autobiographical comics, especially when you capture the “romance” you see in the ordinary. Young hopes to “capture” some truths from his life in a memorable way, such as “living really broke” and “being single in New York”, experiences many readers might share. The most problematic thing Young has faced, he said, about working in autobiographical comics, is that readers equate the Ethan of his comics with Ethan in real life and feel free to tell him that he’s an “asshole” on a regular basis. He’s also been questioned for bringing “fantastic elements” into his works despite their overtly “realistic” tone, and like Haspiel and Fingerman, Young thinks a “metaphorical” element helps him “comment on how interconnected we are with our creations”. It seemed part and parcel of artistic freedom to branch from autobiography into metaphor for several of the panelists.

The discussion between comics artists on the panel was often freeform and interactive during the event, and they chatted about the increasing role of images online, the freedom the internet offers in terms of self-publication, and the impact that it has had on autobiographical comic production. Haspiel commented on the ways that social media has become a form of autobiographical expression, leading him further down the road of embracing metaphor rather than strict biography in his work. Even Gulledge expressed her movement toward “boiling down” life experiences to get to what life is “really about” due to the comparison between unedited and immediate self-expression on social platforms. Haspiel also noted, however, that social media opens up publicity options for web-based work, as in the case of ACTIVATEcomix, which he founded in 2006, and his currently curated multimedia arts site TRIP CITY. The very same technology that raises questions about autobiography by presenting human experience in an unfiltered way can serve as the platform for promoting the more focused works of art that reflect on life’s truths. One of the final topics of the evening focused on advice for cartoonists about funding and publishing their autobiographical and semi-autobiographical works. Now, more than ever, Haspiel argued for the need to be “be part of a community”, whether seeking crowd-funding or readership.

It was clear from hearing the panelists in discussion that they do form their own community of creators supporting many of the same goals in comics, and that each of them has a specific commitment to their readership in creating their work. The fact that the event spotlighting “the cartoonist in comics” not only benefited the comics community by exploring the role of biography and providing insights into creative process, but also raised funds for a worthy local charity emphasized the reciprocal role of community in supporting artwork about the significant truths hidden in everyday life and improving “real life” for those in need. The event was live-streamed by Housing Works and may be available in video format soon.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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For a webcomics platform to reach the ripe age of seven years in the daily-changing world of the internet is a remarkable accomplishment, and for it to keep producing  original, fresh, and engaging work even more of a triumph that accounts for its survival. Founded by Emmy award-winning artist and comics creator Dean Haspiel in 2006, ACTIVATEcomix, formerly known as ACT-I-VATE, is a comics collective devised to showcase original work and provide a platform for direct interaction between creators and readers. Many of its featured creators, and the works that have appeared on ACTIVATE, are award-winning, illustrating the benefits of creator-owned collective platforms, and the collective also generated a print volume, THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER, in 2009. Upon reaching its sixth anniversary, ACTIVATE released a sixth “new wave” of material and member Simon Fraser took on the job of directing its future course.  Several current ACTIVATE members joined me for an interview to ring in its seventh anniversary, including Simon Fraser, long-time member Jim Dougan, and sixth-wave newbies Neil Dvorak, Gideon Kendall, and Cristian Ortiz. Fresh from a celebratory DARE2DRAW event featuring ACTIVATE’s seventh birthday, here’s what these ACTIVATErs have to say about their experiences working with a collective webcomics platform, what they see as the site’s biggest accomplishments, and what the future holds for this one-time experiment, now exemplar, in web publication of creator-owned comics.

Hannah Means-Shannon: What motivated you to publish your work on ACTIVATEcomix?

Simon Fraser: Primarily exposure, but a certain kind of exposure. I think that my work looks better in context with the variety and quality of the other work on ACTIVATEcomix. I like the eclectic world-view of the collective. Part of my initial desire to be a part of ACTIVATEcomix was a desire to avoid being pigeonholed. Frankly I like hanging out with these people, I love their work and I feel that being in a group like this ups my game and keeps me from getting complacent.

[Simon Fraser, photo by Seth Kushner]

Jim Dougan:  It’s always great to find a larger audience and to me ACTIVATE was always the cool place to post webcomics. Not only because there was a lot of really excellent work posted there from creators I liked and respected, but there was also a culture of mutual support and collective spirit.  When I got the invitation from Dean Haspiel and Dan Goldman, I jumped at the chance. They liked the short-form stuff I was doing at The (now defunct) Chemistry Set and challenged me to tackle something longer-form. Luckily I had something in mind, and wanted to work with Hyeondo Park more, and he was ready to do it, too.  “It” was SAM & LILAH, and here we are nearly five years later.

[Jim Dougan]

Neil Dvorak: I met Simon Fraser at MoCCAFest 2012.  He just happened to be sitting next to me doing critiques at the Dare2Draw table.  Finally at the end of his incredible hours-long stint he took a look at my work and invited me to his studio in the coming weeks.  In the meantime I researched ACTIVATEcomix and was immediately drawn in by the breadth and depth of work.

[Neil Dvorak]

Gideon Kendall: I’d seen so much good work on there over the years by artists (too many to mention them all, but special shout-outs to Mike Cavallaro and David Klein who I knew in non-comics professional capacities beforehand: Mike and I worked together as animation designers on Codename: Kids Next Door and David and I are both illustrators and we used to live in the same building) that I respect that when I had the idea for WHATZIT, ACTIVATE was the first place I thought of to present it. I also thought that the community and the format would help keep my on track towards completion of the project.

[Self Portrait by Gideon Kendall]

Cristian Ortiz: I had the chance to meet Simon at the Thought Bubble Festival in England last year and he was kind enough to invite me to join ACTIVATE. The idea of having my work among all the experienced and talented ACTIVATE creators is motivation enough to publish my work on the site.

[Cristian Ortiz]

HM-S:  How has creating for ACTIVATEcomix influenced your production style and methods?

SF: Doing the one page a week format has forced me to learn to write episodically, rather like an old movie serial or a newspaper strip. It’s a great discipline and forces you to be really rigorous and unsentimental with your storytelling.

JD:  You’d have to ask Hyeondo Park how it affects him (on SAM & LILAH), but when it comes to writing, it means that I try to have each update of two or three pages be a meaningful story beat or narrative chunk.  So I’m not just writing for the overall scene or story arc, but for something that makes a least a little bit of sense to read in installments, but that hopefully won’t seem weird when read in a collected form.

[SAM&LILAH by Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park]

ND: Deadlines.  Style and methods?  Who cares…I’m so happy to get comics DONE.

GK: As a first-timer in comics, the whole thing has been a learning process. I have nothing to compare it to, but as far as illustration it’s a refreshing change from the world of print (see my other answers!)

CO: Having to publish pages every week gives me a structure to follow where I have to calculate how many pages I need to create every month to be able to keep a buffer between publishing and production.

[THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN by Cristian Ortiz]

HM-S: What do you think the benefits are of creating on a web platform? Do you find it intersects more with social media than print format?

SF: I think people are more likely to casually stumble across the work, which is part of my plan. I want to build an audience that’s a little wider than the 2000AD readers, who (despite being collectively a very discerning and attractive bunch of people) are a very niche, localized market.

[FlyGirl art by Simon Fraser]

JD: The benefits are the immediate feedback and the ability to have multiple opportunities to interact and communicate on a regular basis.  That might also be the case with creators who are on monthly books, but that’s not usually the case for indie creators, so this is what we’ve got.

ND: The benefits for me are entirely logistical.  I.E. moving panels or characters, the undo button, and some subtle computer fx (ie motion blur or glow) make the work flow in a different way than on paper.  Not better, just different.  Yes, creating on the web makes for a smoother transition to social media.  There are less formatting steps to deal with.

[EASY PIECES by Neil Dvorak]

GK: Again, this is my first real foray into comics so I don’t have much to compare it to, but the social media aspect has been very helpful as far as spreading the word and getting feedback. Being able to click on a link and see the work is much more immediate than having to remember the title when you’re in a comics shop. The downside obviously is that no one is paying you for your work, but hey what else is new?

[WHATZIT by Gideon Kendall]

CO: The benefits of online comics to me is that are easily accessible to many sorts of readers all over the web that print format can’t reach, also making it easier to share and spread, making the amount of exposure increase to a different level.

HM-S: What impact does it have on you as a creator to be part of a collective?

SF: It helps me immensely, both in getting the work done and in keeping me honest. I know I’ll get called on anything I post that is sub-par. Also knowing that people are expecting me to do the work is a huge motivator.  I have the advantage that I do tend to interact with everyone on the collective as I am kind of in the middle of it. I’d like to make more situations where we can all get to hang out together more often. It’s difficult when we all have such busy lives and are so geographically dispersed.

JD:  I enjoy the shared sense of purpose and camaraderie that comes from being a part of ACTIVATE. Even if I don’t have much in common with other ACTIVATErs, we have ACTIVATE in common.  That support really helps considering comics is something that’s done in isolation.

ND: It’s nice to have some pressure to keep the work up to snuff and get it done on time.  There are so many amazing creators on that site who are turning out world-class comics every week.

[EASY PIECES by Neil Dvorak]

GK: It gives me a sense of pride. As a newcomer to comics it’s amazing to instantly feel like a “real” comic artist. It also is great motivation to keep getting the work done. If I was on my own, it would be a lot easier to lose the focus and the ambition that it takes to see a story through. Plus, there’s not wanting to be embarrassed in the company of such accomplished pros.

CO: It gives you a sense of belonging and makes you feel like you are part of a big family who are passionate about making comics. I want to keep on improving my craft and the quality of my work to do my part for the collective.

[THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN by Cristian Ortiz and Daniel Martin]

HM-S:  Does it make a difference to you to know that readers can access your comics so soon after production? Have readers played any part in shaping the direction of your work?

SF: Absolutely. I’ve made the analogy to live Jazz many times. You can feel the response to the storyline and working with that expectation, or against it, can be very exciting.

JD:  It absolutely makes a difference, and I always look forward to reading comments from our readers.  We have a couple of SAM & LILAH readers in particular who pay attention so closely that they keep me on my toes as to what’s going on and being communicated, and they like to speculate as to what will happen next, so I’m mindful of that going forward. I’m not sure they’ve influenced the direction of the story specifically, but certainly knowing someone out there is following it so closely makes you want to do your best to be very clear in your intent. Or be very -unclear- if that’s your intent.

ND: My stuff has always been web-based first.  So that immediacy isn’t novel for me.  The fact that a couple people have come out of the woodwork to email me to tell me my work helped them through a tough time really threw me for a loop.  It’s an interesting thing to continue creating when you know your work might be therapeutic for someone out there; it always is for me, but you don’t expect that.  Now that seed is in my head as I create, and it makes me want to be as honest a creator as I can be.

GK: As someone who primarily does illustration for print, where it can be months or even a year before the work is published, its really exciting to get it out there and get feedback right away. The encouraging comments definitely help me find the energy to keep going and I also had at least one instance where a critical comment led me to refine and improve a certain aspect of the story.

CO: It’s great when you publish pages and you can get instant feedback from readers making you feel inspired to carry on working on more pages and volumes. There are parts of my work that have developed and adapted to improve issues in narrative mentioned by readers and fellow creators alike.

HM-S: What projects have you produced on ACTIVATEcomix and what projects are you currently working on?

SF: My main body of work has been LILLY MACKENZIE & THE MINES OF CHARYBDIS and there are a couple of shorter pieces too. Right now I’m gearing up to start working on the sequel to LILLY, though I keep hitting problems. That can be a benefit though as I’ve had a long time to work and rework the storyline and I think it has improved immeasurably. I should be back onto this very soon (as I’ve been saying for several months now).

Otherwise I’m doing several pitches for some very diverse projects. Some very much in line with what I’ve done before (one with my NIKOLAI DANTE collaborator Robbie Morrison) and some that are radically different. Also I’ve got a sci-fi tale that’s been written by Alex DeCampi and will be published through Dark Horse that I really need to get back to.

[LILLY MACKENZIE by Simon Fraser]

JD:  SAM & LILAH has been, is, and will be my project at ACTIVATE for the foreseeable future.  I’ve posted comics created elsewhere on the site, but the only comic I’ve done specifically for ACTIVATE is S&L, and it’s likely to remain that way for a while.

ND: EASY PIECES.  EASY PIECES.

GK: As of right now (and for the foreseeable future, because it’s so freaking’ huge) my only ACTIVATE project is WHATZIT. I do a lot of illustration work and animation design, so one epic, unwieldy, and self-indulgent graphic novel is all my sanity can maintain.

CO: I’m currently publishing GOLDEN CAMPAIGN Volume 1. I’m also working on Volume 2 at the same time to be able to publish it right after. I want to publish some small stories at some point but I think my main priority at the moment is GOLDEN CAMPAIGN.

[THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN by Cristian Ortiz and Daniel Martin]

HM-S: So, Simon and Jim, how does ACTIVATEcomix handle submissions? Can creators approach ACTIVATEcomix about joining the collective?

SF: They can send their proposal to me ( [email protected] ). If I like it then you’re in. We used to have a very democratic procedure for admissions, but it caused some problems so for the moment we’re a benevolent dictatorship. That could change, but nobody has gotten angry with me … yet.

JD:  Basically, people reach out to Simon. (Sorry Si!) Unless it’s a no-brainer (like an Igor Kordey or David Klein or Ellen Lindner) he’ll send around the submission to a few of us to discuss and vote “yea” or “nay”.  We are always looking for unique and compelling points of view and the comix stories that arise from them.

[SAM&LILAH by Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park]

HM-S:  What do you think ACTIVATEcomix’s biggest accomplishments are?

SF: I think we’re one of the longest lived webcomics collectives, certainly one of the biggest in terms of membership (over 50 this year) and quantity of work (nearly 100 strips). We’ve managed to maintain a really high level of quality too, not just as a webcomics group, but I think we can stand tall even among serious publishing houses.

We have published a book too, The ACT-I-VATE Primer is a beautiful thing. I’ve got a lot of books in print through 2000AD and others things, but I think I’m most proud of that one.

JD:  First of all, surviving at all.  While many other webcomics have been around as long if not longer than we have, not many webcomic –collectives- have been.  I know this from experience, considering that The Chemistry Set (of which I was a co-founder) doesn’t exist anymore, not even as an online archive.  But more importantly – and part and parcel of the survival – is providing an ongoing platform for personal work.  If you look at the archive on the site (http://activatecomix.com/comix), there is a –staggering- amount of great comics there, from some very prestigious folks.  Some of it has led to greater exposure or work or publishing deals for the creator(s), but even when it hasn’t that extensive, unorthodox, diverse, and ambitious body of work is under the ACTIVATE umbrella something to be proud of.

HM-S: What’s up and coming for ACTIVATEcomix at 7 years?

SF: Well the most pressing concern is the branding discussions we’ve been having for the past 8 months or so. That is leading on to a website rebuild, in the nearer future. We’re determined to take the time we need to get it right. I’d very much like to put ACTIVATEcomix in a position where it can expand and thrive for another 7 years.

JD:  More great comics!  For free! Simon is probably better positioned to discuss what’s in the pipeline, but the fact that we’ve got new LILY MACKENZIE coming is something to look forward to from my point of view, not to mention the return of Pedro Camargo, David Klein, and Ryan Roman to the ACTIVATE fold.  Add to that Ellen Lindner coming aboard with her new book THE BLACK FEATHER FALLS, and newcomers like Cristian Ortiz’s THE GOLDEN CAMPAIGN and Neil Dvorak’s EASY PIECES…there is literally more good stuff happening than I can keep up with.  And that doesn’t even include Igor Kordey and Darko Macan’s THE TEXAS KID, MY BRO, which is like my favorite comic right now.  There is as much – if not more – good stuff happening, more good comics being posted on a regular basis right now than there has been at any time in ACTIVATE’s seven-year history.  And that’s a very exciting thing! So give us a look – there’ something for everyone.

HM-S: Hearing from these ACTIVATE members has reminded me again of the working paradox that seems to exist at the heart of this collective project, a paradox between the depth of personal experiences that creators bring to the platform which renders their works so distinctive, and the respect for the medium that creates a single entity out of so many perspectives. Looking back at seven years of ACTIVATE, it’s a vast and varied panorama, and we certainly hope that as ACTIVATE grows and changes, it continues to be a touch-stone for what collective comics projects can accomplish. Thanks very much to Simon, Joe, Neil, Gideon, and Cristian, for sharing their thoughts with The Beat!

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

TweetOn February 9th, from 4-7 PM, Medialia Gallery at 335 West 38th street hosted an opening reception for it’s 7th annual Panel to Panel Comic and Cartoon Art exhibit, this year entitled “One Thing Leads to Another”. Though the exhibition has been going for seven years, many comics event goers may not have heard of [...]

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New comics collective of the day, Studio YOLO which spun out of a cartooning residency with Dean Haspiel held at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. It consists of 8 cartoonists from around the world:

Christa Cassano
Fionnuala Doran (as seen above)
James Greene
George Jurard
Meghan Lands
Gregory Mackay
Jp Pollard
Jess Ruliffson
and YOLO emeritus Dean Haspiel

The group had its origin in an exercise during the residency:

During the residency, Dean proposed a challenge to Studio YOLO: to interpret a script with no visual cues, only text used as dialogue and/or narration into a fully realized comic that would later be published at TripCity.net

After the success of this exercise, Studio YOLO decided that new challenges be put forth with one of the members writing a similarly loose script for all the other members to interpret. In addition, Studio YOLO showcases a handful of guest artists whose work is published along with the founder’s work on the site. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to take the Studio YOLO challenge.

Studio YOLO is dedicated to telling quality stories and expanding upon the language of comics.

We had a chance to meet some of the YOLO folks at BCGF and you should definitely check out thelinks above.

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Earlier this week, Jimmy Palmiotti announced that the noble experiment CREATOR OWNED HEROES would conclude after its 8^th issue. Over the course of the magazine’s publication, outreach on social media emphasized the need to raise awareness and increase solicitation from comic shops to keep the multi-contributor series in motion. Consistently strong reviews appeared on media, fan, and blog sites with each issue, and as COH developed, it continued to raise the bar on high-quality content. The ascent has been dizzying, and exhilarating for readers and comics creators alike in an era of increasing awareness about the ups and downs of self-publication. It has been like watching crucial surgery in a live operating theatre in the hands of celebrated practitioners where the audience has come to play an integral role. The life of the patient has depended on their rapt attention in increasing numbers. Depending on your perspective, issue #8 will represent the final bow of an effort exploratory and unique, or perhaps somber flat-lining during a risky procedure that practitioners will attempt to learn from for some time to come. But either way, COH won’t be concluding in obscurity. Ironically, there will be more people in the operating theatre than ever before to witness its final moments and draw their own conclusions.

CREATOR OWNED HEROES #7 represents a particular crescendo in the magazine’s development, a point at which even those who have been following the series closely lean forward, aware that something unprecedented is unfolding before their eyes. It expresses a remarkable energy and a confluence of its methods and its goals due, in part, to the team of contributors it brings together. As Justin Gray says introducing his Brandon Seifert interview, “When we started Creator Owned Heroes, it wasn’t just a desire to self-publish; it was a multilevel dedication to comics that were being produced outside the work for hire landscape”. Gray also cites “ a fundamental desire to tell stories” as a common feature among the creators chosen as contributors. Issue #7 is a tour de force illustration of those criteria.

The powerhouse comic in the anthology is clearly Darwyn Cooke’s irreverent, rapidly paced and verbally exuberant “The Deadly Book”. Cooke hits high notes across the board of comic storytelling elements, from a lush, contrasty color palette in sky-blue, blood-red, and ink-black, to unexpected vantage points, compressed action, and even a very indie take on relating past events in short form via substantial narrative blocks. The comic displays the best possible outcomes for a skilled creator taken off the leash to tell the kind of story that they want to tell in the way that they see fit to tell it.

Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Jerry Lando, and Paul Mountis follow Cooke with “Killswitch” in its 3^rd installment of 4. They put the action back in indie in a big way and display a particular virtuosity in reversing a typical paradigm in espionage/hitman themed comics. Rather than telling the story with several panels, if not pages, of heavy exposition followed by the action sequences readers have been waiting for, they manage to reveal a wealth of exposition during an installment that, arguably, is one big action arc. They keep it interesting by demanding the reader put the pieces of information together for themselves, from Kill Switch’s complicated pseudo family life to the developing role of a nemesis. Rather than just telling a story well, which is a quite an achievement in itself, they manage to tell a story differently, once again illustrating the surprising results when creators have sufficient room for experimentation.

Steve Niles and Scott Morse bring an even greater variation in style and content to COH #7, pushing the boundaries of typical narrative structures while giving a nod to still-rich veins of comics tradition. They break down confined panel layout, and do away with textboxes and speech balloons to tell a noirish private-eye tale with disturbing gusto. “Meatbag’s” full page-feel conjures up Eisner’s SPIRIT while the first-person narrator places the storytelling firmly in Raymond Chandler territory. Add to these elements the use of limited color palette, heavy brush-stroke illustration and moody lettering, and you’ve got a finely balanced combination of old and new, making this a 21^st century comic with a lot of room for innovation.

Then we have zombies. The subject-matter is in danger of being done into the ground in the TV, film, and comics medium, but in keeping with the challenges set by COH #7, Dean Haspiel and Jeffrey Burandt deliver something readers have simply never seen before, imploding any expectation of the familiar. Haspiel’s zombie artwork avoids the basic emphasis on blood and gore flooding zombie media these days and emphasizes, in a visceral way, the disjointedness of decomposition through trailing limbs and chunks of missing anatomy. This makes Haspiel and Burandt’s heroine seem all that much more solid, active, and vital as she spikes a zombie noggin and blasts through zombie brains. This is zombie-storytelling streamlined to basic psychological elements: loneliness, companionship, and, finally, the pulse-poundingly unexpected that makes the genre so popular. “Blood and Brains” retools zombie narrative by removing excess accretion and celebrating its potential in creator-owned style.

Photo-comic COMPLEX: “Luv_Underscore’s_U” by Seth Kushner, Chris Miskiewicz, and Dean Haspiel reminds us that the comics medium is expansive, varied, and should never feel too comfortable. Katelan Foisy and Miskiewicz star in this futuristic psychological landscape where the solid realities of the photo images help readers keep a grip on the otherwise shifting definitions of reality in the narrative. There’s a subtle ambiguity in the nature and future of technology, it’s use and misuse to contribute to human experience, and on the whole the photo-comic not only tells the reader but shows the reader the spell-like suspension of disbelief comics, in the right hands, are still capable of creating.

The prose content of COH #7 also contributes greatly to the purpose of the series, present from issue #1, of taking readers inside the world of creator-owned projects, an on the ground approach that not only educates but instructs. Justin Gray’s interview with Brandon Seifert allows the reader to hear straight from the horse’s mouth, “Want to be a writer? Start writing. It’s that simple, and that hard”. A “social media press conference” included in the issue also brings together advice and insight from creators and Steve Bunche concludes a full-on bootcamp for aspiring comics writers with plenty of solid advice that may seem counter-intuitive like “avoid topical subjects”. It’s clear that the meta-text of COH #7 is not there simply to sell books but to actually aid aspiring creators in avoiding the pitfalls that contributors have faced.

From issue #1, COH has given a strong impression of community among indie creators, and #7 continues to follow through in inclusiveness. A major profile of legendary tide-fighter Evan Dorkin, written by Christopher Irving, and photographed by Seth Kushner, only further illustrates the point. Creator-owned projects may seem like a new thing, maybe even a fad, but they aren’t. They’ve been breaking new ground for some time, and there’s plenty to be learned from observing the struggles of greats like Dorkin. Dorkin’s legacy in brief could be summed up in his statement: “I’ve come to hate when people say ‘Don’t get into comics’. I learned to say ‘Fuck that. If you want to get into comics, get into comics’”. But Dorkin, like many other creators, is also prepared to try to inform readers about what exactly they are getting into because a few tips a long the way can make all the difference.

The combined tone and attitude of the comics and prose in CREATOR OWNED HEROES #7 avoids even the faintest whiff of defeatism. The series’ message is still going strong, and the works it presents don’t even aspire to meet the professionalism of company-owned comics, they aspire to go beyond company-owned projects in terms of high-quality story-telling, artwork and design. After all, what’s the point in trying to keep up with the Joneses when you really want to set a new standard all your own? As an experiment, the COH series is winding down, but the data is being collected, the procedure is nearly complete, and no one doubts the skill of the team involved. The increasing momentum generated in the pages of COH #7 has, certainly, guaranteed that no one will stop reading until the experiment is complete.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

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On Saturday, December 1^st, the Hamilton Gallery Theater in Caroll Gardens, Brooklyn, hosted a benefit for a Red Hook landmark, Sunny’s Bar, in attempt to help bring it back from the verge of storm-ravaged closure. Sunny’s Bar, only a short distance from the waterfront, was filled with water and sludge by Hurricane Sandy, and its electrical systems, particularly, obliterated. The destruction of Sunny’s hit Brooklyn hard, a punch right in the heart of the artistic community specifically. For many, this was a retreat and a gathering place where memories were made for decades, and, thankfully, they weren’t prepared to let Sunny’s go down without a fight. Marketing, Public Relations, and Event Management professional Anica Archip , and her brother Dmitri Archip, spear-headed the benefit to complement the Sunny’s Kickstarter campaign, still underway, and provided the Hamilton event space.  Local businesses donated refreshments, and a devoted arts community supplied over 5 hours of performance in honor of Sunny’s. Emmy-award winning comics artist and arts curator Dean Haspiel rounded up the talent and helped spread the word via social media while Sunny’s staff supported the event through set-up and bartending.

100% of the proceeds went to helping one of the most remote, and most beloved hangouts in Brooklyn back onto its feet. What started out as a small event elicited an overwhelming turnout to the point of rotating crowds off of the event floor to get as many people past the donations table as possible as performances ranged from readings of screen projected comics, poetry, and prose, to comedy performances, and lastly a few hours of wide-ranging musical sets by volunteers. The atmosphere was highly charged, emotional, but also celebratory throughout the night as community support for the benefit became more and more evident. In effect, it became a relocation of Sunny’s own events nights, a home away from home, prefiguring a return to its mecca status in days to come.

A number of the comics and prose performers hailed from Brooklyn’s own digital literary arts salon TRIP CITY, including co-curators Dean Haspiel, Seth Kushner, Chris Miskiewicz, and Jeffrey Burandt, joined by TRIP CITY member Jen Ferguson, and Brooklyn poet Denver Butson. Haspiel performed a comics meditation on Brooklyn and Manhattan during a time of crisis, Beef with Tomato, while also previewing a new creator-owned comic appropriately titled RED HOOK. Photographer and writer Kushner presented an event-inspired essay “My Brooklyn” with slides from his photo book Brooklynites, while writer Miskiewicz provided a haunting narrative set at the bar itself, “Last Night at Sunny’s”. Ferguson, an artist,  narrated a CulturePOP photocomic featuring her own Brooklyn Bridge artwork, and writer and musician Burandt presented a recent Brooklyn-set comic “Bibbin’s Bodega” to the accompaniment of a mellow bass-line. Butson proved that poetry could hold its own as performance art with startling observations about the secret emotional and imaginative lives of ordinary citizens. The thematic pieces were well chosen, highlighting the role of community and geography as inspiration for creative work.

The comedy performances of the evening were raucous and added to the positive vibe building up during the benefit, turning the fund-raiser into an affirmation rather than a reflection on the devastating effects of the hurricane. Brooke Van Poppelen brought a Brooklyn perspective to the vagaries of working in Manhattan and commented on the increasing gentrification of Brooklyn itself, subtly asserting that enduring “real” Brooklyn culture continues in the face of change. Angry Bob came out from Queens to punch holes in the political climate of the recent elections and present the all-too human reactions to hurricane damage including outrage over cable outages in less affected areas. Meanwhile, donated beer on tap was flowing, along with wine, and the crowd situation on the floor was becoming intense. Between performance blocks rotation provided access to Sunny’s supporters.

The musical portion of the evening showcased an astonishing breadth of local talent, including the newly formed band Two Beards: One Heart with lead-singer Jeffrey Burandt debuting new material, John Pinamonti, The Black Coffee Blues Band, and Smokey Hormel supporting The Luna Sisters, many of whom perform as regular bands at Sunny’s on its own event nights. While blues music was particularly appropriate, The Luna Sisters, including Sunny’s proprietor Tone Johansen, really stole the show with their nostalgic and hypnotic performance of classics like “It’s a Wonderful World” and “Bye, Bye Blues”. “Yes, even after Sandy”, Tone declared, “it’s a wonderful world”. Proprietor Sunny himself too the mic to conclude the event, offering his heartfelt thanks and astonishment at the monumental support demonstrated for Sunny’s Bar. Appearing weathered, wearing waterproof clothes, he was nevertheless unbowed by the natural disaster that had struck at his life’s work. It was clear no one really wanted to go home, having missed gatherings at Sunny’s since the storm, but the owners vowed that next time the party would be “at home” when Sunny’s doors, aided by a big push from its denizens, opened again.

The evening came off without a hitch, and the funds raised were the best possible scenario for what started as an ambitious exercise in elbow grease. Anica Archip and Dean Haspiel agreed to tell me a little bit about what Sunny’s means to them and why they poured so much of their time and creativity into making the benefit happen. Archip and Haspiel, like many, have their own deeply personal memories of the beloved bar.

Anica Archip: I’m a Brooklyn, Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens neighborhood native, Red Hook, Gowanus, and Brooklyn Heights was part of my playground. I remember the first time I set foot in Sunny’s Bar, it was a late summer afternoon around 1994. My car was towed from my street in Carroll Gardens and the lot where the city kept towed vehicles was located directly across the street from Sunny’s. My husband and I (I was married then ) were picking up the car and we were laughing over the whole incident because the day prior we were searching hours for the car convinced that we forgot where it was parked, versus the reality that it was towed. Anyway, as we exited the lot the door to Sunny’s Bar was open and we walked in for a drink. The bar was empty yet magical. The bright setting sun poured in through the window and once my eyes adjusted to the room, I realized we entered a realm frozen in time, a waterfront bar scene from the 1950′s. Behind the counter was a gentle faced man with long hair who looked like he stepped out of 1968, it was Sunny. We sat at the counter, told him of our car adventure and began to chat. I mentioned that my brother tends bar on Atlantic Ave, and just at that moment Sunny looked into my eyes, cupped my face with his large hands and said in his sweet tone, “I know who you are, you’re Dimitri’s sister.” Sunny’s Bar was instantly “home” – a place of comfort, where I could relax and I knew belonged. Needless to say I’ve been going back since.

In 1995 I became an active member of the Brooklyn arts organization BWAC (Brooklyn Waterfront Artists’ Coalition). Their yearly art show was held in the warehouses on the piers of Red Hook around the corner from Sunny’s. We would hang out at Sunny’s on Friday nights (the only night it was open back then) and listen to live music, it was impromptu not planned; talk with the neighborhood old timers; drink some Pabst or Schlitz beer, and just hang into the wee hours of the morning. You never arrived before 10pm, it became packed with artists, musicians, writers, dancers, and local neighbors by midnight and then closed about an hour or so before sunrise. And Sunny was always there to greet you with a big warm hug. Sunny’s hugs are special, just about everyone wants to be hugged by Sunny. It’s even listed as one of the items people can receive if they pledge a donation on the “Bring Sunny’s Back Home!” Kickstarter site:

Dean Haspiel: When I first moved to Brooklyn in 1997, I heard whispers about an old bar in Red Hook that hadn’t aged. When I first entered Sunny’s, it was like stepping into the past. An era I never lived in but always wanted to visit. And, it was one block away from the sea. It was the first bar I ever went to where the goblins in my head were quelled by the folk art and bluegrass music. I would just melt into the background for hours. It was a destination spot for people who wanted to get away and raise their glass to the Statue of Liberty and toast to an era of New York City that artists and blue collar workers could afford and pontificate a week of hard work.

Sunny himself would often appear like a specter of levity and brighten the room with his long hair and infectious smile. I got friendly with the bartenders and eventually met Tone, Sunny’s wife, who sings songs and curates the art shows in the back of the bar where musicians assemble and play music. I remember when Michael C. Maronna, star of the 1990′s kids TV show THE ADVENTURES OF PETE & PETE, would tend bar. Sunny’s is where my pal, Jonathan Ames, introduced me to actor/song writer, Jason Schwartzman, right before we started shooting HBO’s “Bored To Death.” In fact, a scene from “Bored To Death” was shot at Sunny’s. These days, I’ll occasionally bump into actor Michael Shannon and trade late night quips. But, more importantly, Sunny’s draws people who are worth their salt because it’s not easy to get to. Sunny’s is the last bar at the end of the world and when the apocalypse happens, that’s where you’ll find me.

Haspiel and Archip also commented on the strange genesis of the idea for the event, which easily might have fallen by the wayside as Brooklyn, and the rest of the East Coast pushes to rebuild the essentials as quickly as possible.

AA: A small group (4 people + 1 cat) of Red Hook artist friends took refuge at my house when they had to evacuate due to the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. The morning after the superstorm hit we walked over to Red Hook to check out the damage and check in on other friends. What we saw was unexpected and shocking. My childhood friend’s home was severely damaged, people were coming out into the streets in tears, huge trees were ripped off their roots and power lines were left dangling. The streets were slicked with a coating of oil from boilers that were damaged and destroyed. The air was thick with the smells of oil and gas from spills that now settled in the streets of Red Hook. Block after block looked like aftermath of a war. I knew I had to check in on Sunny’s because they’re located at the very edge, just where the water meets the land. When I arrived Tone was standing outside with a look of horror in her eyes, tears started to flow from her face. We immediately embraced and she muttered, “Water is still rushing into the basement, the water is still coming in, I can’t stop the water.” A few people now gathered in front trying to help her and I overheard someone say that the water main pipe that connects to the building broke. They needed to shut off the city line from the sidewalk. An emergency vehicle, I think it was a utility company, pulled up in front of the bar and Tone ran to tell them of the problem. As I walked back home in silence my mind was racing with all I had witnessed and I felt helpless.

Dean & I had touched base in the days after Sandy and we briefly talked about what we saw and the damage to our beloved Sunny’s Bar. I then received an email from Dean about his idea to help Save Sunny’s, he asked if I was interested in helping and I knew that I could execute his vision. I immediately said Yes! And then approached my brother about having the benefit in our home.

A side bar note here is that Dean & I would occasionally meet up at Sunny’s throughout the years – we still do. In the early 2000′s after hangin’ at the Smith Street bars, on a Friday night, we’d sometimes do the Red Hook scene - which was Lilly’s Bar (now closed) and of course Sunny’s. You always ended the night at Sunny’s. Dean would ride over on his bike and I’d either walk it or take a car service. Attached is a b&w photo circa 2004(?) taken by my photographer friend Judy Parker (who was visiting from the Bay Area with her sister) of a Friday night walk along Beard street from Lillie’s to Sunny’s. Pictured is me, Dean’s bike and his cast shadow – sometime after 1am. I don’t think Dean’s ever seen this.

DH: A couple of days after Superstorm Sandy annihilated New Jersey and ravaged NYC, I rode my bike over to Red Hook and saw everyone’s destroyed basements on the sidewalks. When I finally got to Sunny’s, I saw the staff pumping water and made eyes with Tone. Sunny’s basement was a box of sludge, the boiler was busted and the electricity panels were destroyed among other flood damage to the bar. And, to make matters worse, the foundation was compromised. I knew right then and there that I had to do something. As Brooklyn began to rally relief, I made it my mission to help out the place I call home on the Friday and Saturday nights I unchain myself from my desk. I contacted my pal/publicist/event manager/and longtime friend of Sunny’s Bar, Anica Archip, to ask if she would manage and host an event [along with her brother Dimitri] to help promote and raise funds for Sunny’s. Anica immediately said “yes” and we approached Tone who said “yes,” offering to staff the night with the actual staff from Sunny’s. We co-curated the event and I designed a poster with Seth Kushner but it was Anica who truly handled all the nuts and bolts. Along with select TRIP CITY curators and contributors reading prose and comix (Jeffrey Burandt, Chris Miskiewicz, Jen Ferguson, Zees Moreno), local bands, poets, and comedians (Denver Butson, Brooke Van Poppelen, Angry Bob, Black Coffee Blues Band, Smokey & The Luna Sisters), we created a stellar evening that would bring people and diehard Sunny’s patrons together for a donation based evening where we provided entertainment and drinks. Jeffrey Burandt debuted his new band, Two Beards One Heart, and I debuted my new comic, The Red Hook. We gave them a little bit of Trip City to nosh on while recreating a night at Sunny’s. It was glorious.

Following the event, Archip and Haspiel reflected on the highlights of the evening that meant the most to them and made it all worthwhile.

AA: This one’s easy. Seeing the happy faces of Sunny’s clientele – his family of friends - my friends. A month had passed since Sandy hit and everyday in Red Hook has been devoted to the clean up. Pumping water, throwing out damaged personal items, family treasures, furniture, vital equipment, parts of your house, applying for help, filing papers. Sleep, rinse, repeat. But on this one night friends gathered, took a break, met up as they normally would at Sunny’s. They enjoyed the entertainment, had a beer or two, were greeted by a smiling, happy Tone, chatted with their favorite bartender and got their hug from Sunny. Helping to reunite this community of friends was worth it all.

DH: Besides witnessing all the support for Sunny’s, I think my favorite parts of the night were hearing Tone sing with her wonderful Luna Sisters and seeing Sunny end the evening with his gracious praise and infectious smile. He reminded us that this wasn’t for Sunny’s Bar but for us. All of us. Sunny’s Bar isn’t just another ancient watering hole. It’s an everlasting community.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

The Angel

Hero Complex

Via PW Comics Week yet another peel at Strange Tales II, this time by Dean Haspiel. Via PW Comics Week yet another peel at Strange Tales II, this time by Dean Haspiel.

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