By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 12/22/2014
Do I really need to say any more? After more than a year, a new issue of Love and Rockets: New Stories is coming out in a few weeks. While everyone else is popping the champagne, I’ll celebrate by running the nine page preview of new work by the incomparable Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 11/7/2014
And that just about wraps it up here! With new books by Horrocks, Rickheit, Schrauwen, Knisley, James Romberger and Marguerite van Cook, and a little item called The Complete ZAP! I think Fanta is kinda….ruling. Get these REALY kids because they will go FAST FAST FAST.
Arsene Schrauwen by Olivier Schrauwen
Follow along as Olivier’s grandfather traveled to a remote colony to help build a utopia in the wilderness, fell in love with his cousin’s wife, and then into delirium – but is it love or jungle virus-induced fever, reality or imagination? You’ll come undone by Olivier’s first full-length graphic novel: part-biography, part-surrealscape, all fantastic. $34.99 Out in November 2014 but get your copied SIGNED by Olivier at CAB.
Cochlea & Eustachia by Hans Rickheit
Cochlea & Eustachia appear to be twin human girls, but this has yet to be confirmed. Their actions seem to be motivated less by curiosity than boredom and an inclination towards purposeless destruction. This new graphic novel from the author of the acclaimed Squirrel Machine is lighter in tone than his previous works, yet its myriad charms remain as sinister as Rickheit fans would expect. $19.99 Out in stores December but pick up an advance at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.
Displacement by Lucy Knisley
A travel memoir recounting the artist’s experience of caring for her frail grandparents aboard a cruise ship, while reflecting on her own fears on mortality, her age, ageism in America and her family’s relationships and history. $19.99 In stores January 2015 but pick up an advance copy at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.
Foolbert Funnies by Frank Stack, edited by Kristy Valenti
A “best of the rest” tribute collecting Stack’s work under his pseudonym, “Foolbert Sturgeon”. Includes appearances by Dirty Diana, time traveler Frank Crankcase, Dr. Feelgood, and others. A tribute to a Texan who’s been quietly creating observational, iconoclastic art for more than forty years. $24.99 In stores January 2015 but pick up an advance copy at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.
The Complete ZAP Comix by R. Crumb, Rick Griffin, Paul Mavrides, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Williams, S. Clay Wilson
The most historically and aesthetically important comics series ever, finally collected. There scarcely was an underground comics world before Robert Crumb’s classic solo first issue of Zap in 1968. By Zap #2, he had begun assembling a Seven Samurai of the best, the fiercest, and the most stylistically diversified cartoonists to come out of the countercultural kiln. It will also include the 17th unpublished issue with work by Crumb, Moscoco, Wilson, Rodriguez, Shelton, Mavrides, and Williams. We’ll have one set for you to paw over. $500.00 In stores November but pick up this ONE copy at CAB.
The Late Child and Other Animals by Marguerite Van Cook and James Romberger
A generational autobiography written by legendary punk diva and award-winning poet Van Cook, adapted by artist Romberger. The journeys and struggles over decades of this mother and daughter are linked in five episodes that veer between lyricism, wry wit, and harrowing suspense. $29.99 In stores November but pick up an advance copy and get it SIGNED at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.
Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, various artists, edited by Anne Ishii and Graham Kohlbeins
Big, burly, lascivious, and soft around the edges: welcome to the hyper-masculine world of Japanese gay comics. The first English-language anthology of its kind: a collection of manga from the most talented and influential artists in the gei komi genre. $35.99 In stores late December but pick up this a copy at CAB and get it signed by Anne Ishii and designer Chip Kidd.
Michael Jordan: Bull on Parade by Wilfred Santiago
A thrilling, kinetic bio-epic about Michael “Air” Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time and most influential athlete in history. This tour de force explores Jordan’s public successes and private struggles. $24.99 In stores February 2015 but pick up an advance copy at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.
Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen by Dylan Horrocks
www.fantagraphics.com/samzabel
A creatively blocked cartoonist finds a mysterious old comic book and is thrown into a fantastic journey through centuries of comics, stories, and imaginary worlds. Funny, erotic, and thoughtful, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen explores the pleasures, dangers, and moral consequences of fantasy. Horrocks’s first new graphic novel since Hicksville. $29.99 In stores late December but pick up an advance copy at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.
Treasury of Mini-Comics Vol. 2 edited by Michael Dowers
www.fantagraphics.com/treasuryofminicomics2
Four decades of deliberate DIY cartoon rebellion! Collecting some of the best mini comics ever produced by some of the most creative artists in the world. Edited by Michael Dowers. $29.99 In stores January 2015 but pick up an advance copy at the Fantagraphics table at CAB.

By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 11/4/2014
You guys! You guy! Ohmigod! Cartoonist Tony Millionaire and animator Matt Danner are trying to make a hybrid CGI/live action movie based on Millionaire’s Sock Monkey books. Danner—WWE Slam City, Hotwheels—has penned a script and the duo re attempting to line up financing for the film.
Sock Monkey is the star of several children’s books by Millionaire, the most recent, Sock Monkey Into The Deep Woods
co-written by Danner, is a pilot for the film. All of them feature Millionaire’s intricate retro artwork and hauntingly wistful, sad and eerie stories that suggest loss and sorrow even when things seem to be going well. Just like all great kids books. And if you watch the test above, you can see that tone is lovingly captured—and good call on the Saint-Saens clip from “The Aquarium.”
Story follows stuffed hero Uncle Gabby as he and his doll pals venture across sea, land, and air to save their human, Ann-Louise, whom they fear has been kidnapped by a vicious monster. The Sock Monkey project was initially envisioned as a film, but when Danner wrote the treatment as a children’s book, Millionaire’s publisher Fantagraphics caught wind of it and agreed to publish it in print form first. The book hits shelves November 16.
Danner and Millionaire are going out to studios and financiers with the script and teaser, which Danner shot on his own over the course of one day with a small crew. Using five different “digi-nette” puppets on a practical set, they shot live-action footage which was later blended with CG to create a surreal look and feel.
Millionaire’s comic strip Maakies was previously adapted into the more raucous and alcohol-fueled Drinky Crow Show which aired on Adult Swim for a couple seasons.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 10/30/2014
You can’t spell “horror comics” without EC—these finely drawn masterpieces of the macabre set a standard for illustrated chills that were so unsettling, they nearly got the whole comics industry shut down.
Fantagraphics has been reprinting the EC comics in handsome books devoted to various artists, including the late great Al Feldstein, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels and John Severin. And they are on sale from Comixology until 11 pm tomorrow night. Each book is only $10.99, and pound for pound this could be the best back for your horror buck possible.
You may have seen the stories excerpted here there and everywhere, but if you’ve never experienced these tales in quantity, this is a fine jumping on point. And shhhhhh, Harvey Kurtzman’s great war comics are also on sale.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 10/3/2014
Nothing says Halloween like Charlie Brown, Linus and the Great Pumpkin. Fantagraphics, which has been publishing all of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts strips in chronological order, has also starting putting out charming gift books based on themes Earlier this year they did a baseball themed one, and for the holidays, they’ve produced Waiting for the Great Pumpkin and Snoopy’s Thanksgiving.
The Halloween book reprints the classic tale of Linus’s belief in the Great Pumpkin, in the face of great adversity. If only he had been waiting for the Great Pumpkin Spice Latte.
It doesn’t get better than this. And here’s a preview:
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By: Andy Yates,
on 9/24/2014
Julia Gfrörer studied illustration at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts before graduating with a double major in printmaking and painting. She was encouraged to get into making comics by her good friend, the late comics historian, publisher & cartoonist ,Dylan Williams. She started off making a few hand made zines like Ariadne auf Naxos, and Stupid Tales of Wolverine, but then found great critical success with her comic Flesh and Bone, published by Sparkplug Books. Tonally, her work is deeply rooted in Victorian gothic horror, and classic Medieval romances. I see a lot of David Lynch rubbing off in her stories, and a little Larry Clark in her raw approach to sex.
Her graphic novel, Black is the Color, was published by Fantagraphics in 2013. Her work has also appeared in The Thickness comics anthology, Arthur Magazine, Study Group Magazine, Black Eye, and The Best American Comics collection.
Julia Gfrörer also writes a regular comics analysis column for the Comics Journal called Symbol Reader. You can follow that here.
You can order Julia Gfrörer’s latest zine, Palm Ash, and get the latest news on her website here.
For more comics related art, you can follow me on my website comicstavern.com - Andy Yates
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/17/2014
By Bruce Lidl
A number of comics publishers today joined comiXology’s no-DRM initiative, and will start offering their titles without digital anti-copying technology. Comixology’s announcement at San Diego in July that publishers could now distribute DRM-free focused on a small group of early enthusiasts, including Image Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, Zenescope Entertainment, MonkeyBrain Comics, Thrillbent, and Top Shelf Productions. From conversations at San Diego, it was clear a number of publishers at San Diego would be embracing DRM-free digital comics soon, and IDW Publishing, Valiant Entertainment, Oni Press, Fantagraphics Books, Aspen Comics, Action Lab Entertainment, Th3rd World Studios, A Wave Blue World, Blind Ferret Entertainment, Caliber Comics, Creative Impulse Entertainment, Devils Due Entertainment, GT Labs Comics and Kingstone Media have just made it official.
It is not clear to what extent the publishers will be extending DRM-free backup capabilities to the whole range of their titles, or to back issues that were previously distributed with DRM. In a quick scan of offerings Fantagraphics has already made some titles available, including today’s release of Cosplayers #2 and Jim Woodring’s Jim. IDW has made today’s Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Ongoing #33: Dawn of the Autobots DRM-free but Godzilla: Cataclysm #2 is not. It may be that it will take time to implement the DRM-free option, or it may be that particular deals with license-owners or individual creators do not allow it. Time will tell how far DRM-free gets extended by these publishers.
As a trend, though, the indications are clear that more and more publishers are embracing a flexible approach, giving their customers increased options and autonomy over their comics purchases. The movement is strong among small to medium publishers, but should put some pressure on the Big Two (and Dark Horse) that have so far resisted the call for less restrictions on their crown-jewel intellectual properties.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/11/2014
Rumors about Fantagraphics launching a smaller, micro press had been floating around for a while and in advance of SPOX they’ve made it official. FU Press will publish small limited editions (100 to 500 copy print runs) of material that is more “off the beaten path” than Tim Lane or Lucy Knisley. “Work by relatively unknown cartoonists that’s innovative, quirky, idiosyncratic, oddball, experimental, or downright crazy, work by established cartoonists that’s simply off-kilter or too obscure to sustain a mass market release, or archival work by significant cartoonists who have been overlooked and that might otherwise be short-shrifted due to the commercial demands of the traditional marketplace,” as the pr [uts it.
The first two releases are Jonah Kinigstein’s The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Tower of Babel in the “Art” World, a collection of political cartoons, and a re-release of Jason Karns’ Fukitor. Future releases are planned from Richard Sala and Guy Colwell, and a reprint of seminal underground/alternative cartoonist George Metzger’s Beyond Time and Again.
You may recall the latter got some major press a while ago for reveling in what some called racist, sexist imagery. Karns stepped in to defend himself in confident he-man terms, while some took the whole kerfuffle as the chance to question the social relevance of many indie comics.
Anyhoo, this line (and its title) seem to ft in with the general reverence for the spirit of the underground comics always on display with Fantagraphics—and obviously the line will make a bunch of cool underground books of the past available once again. I suspect there may be a TEENSY EENSY WEENSY bit of controversy about this line, but hey controversy sells.
Fantagraphics Books is launching Fantagraphics Underground Press (FU Press), a new micro imprint that will publish books and print projects appealing to a smaller, more rarefied readership. The Fantagraphics mission has always been to publish comics and cartoons that take risks and reflect the uncompromising vision of the artist. It’s also crucial for us to put out books that will survive in an unforgiving mass market, but, what about work that doesn’t quite fit into our standard business model? Work by relatively unknown cartoonists that’s innovative, quirky, idiosyncratic, oddball, experimental, or downright crazy, work by established cartoonists that’s simply off-kilter or too obscure to sustain a mass market release, or archival work by significant cartoonists who have been overlooked and that might otherwise be short-shrifted due to the commercial demands of the traditional marketplace.
The FU Press imprint will inhabit a space between self-publishing and mass-market publishing. We’ll print limited editions (between 100 and 500 copies), market them on our website, help arrange signings and convention appearances, and sell them at comic festivals and to a select few comics shops across North America. New Jersey based independent printer, Jon Barli, will be supervising the printing and production of all the FU Press books. With such an ever-changing landscape, we have the opportunity to produce exciting and hand-crafted editions in short runs here in the United States utilizing a wide gamut of printing methods and formats: everything from a traditional digital-offset paperback to a hand sewn jacketed softcover to an epic accordion book; as projects demand, we can utilize silkscreen or letterpress, or any combination, and create truly artisanal books.

“I’m terrifically excited to be a part of Fantagraphics’ new effort to bring noteworthy projects out from underground,” explains printer Jon Barli. “We’re not placing any limitations on ourselves and aim to break new ground.”Fantagraphics wants the cartoonist to be as involved in all of these areas as he or she wants to, but we’re willing to do the heavy lifting, allowing the cartoonists to focus on their creative work without worrying about every step of the commercial process – the logistics and financial hassles of printing, distribution, and promotion.

The first two FU books will debut at Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, MD and be available for purchase by mail in October of 2014. They are both violent responses to different aspects of pop culture, high and low. Jonah Kinigstein’s The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Tower of Babel in the “Art” World is an 80-page oversized landscape-format softcover collecting Kinigstein’s political cartoons inveighing against the trends of abstract and modern art through the 20th century. Meticulously rendered in pen and ink in the tradition of George Townshend and James Gilray, the elaborate compositions skewer artists, curators, and critics. Jason Karns’ Fukitor is an attack of a different kind: reprinted from the artist’s self-published zine, the book is a 144 page compilation of full color comics that reside uneasily between a straight and satirical response to the violence, xenophobia, and sexual and racial stereotypes found in pop culture.Future projects include portfolios of drawings by Richard Sala and Guy Colwell, and a reprint of seminal underground/alternative cartoonist George Metzger’s Beyond Time and Again.
It’s fitting that the name of the imprint is Fantagraphics Underground (FU Press) – since underground comics were a source of inspiration when Fantagraphics started publishing The Comics Journal in 1976; in 1981 Jack Jackson’s Los Tejanos was the first “graphic novel” we ever published. The underground comics movement was a guerilla model we looked up to: uncensored expression, author ownership, and work that could only be published outside of mainstream channels. FU Press is a return to our roots.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 7/27/2014
More news through from San Diego, as Fantagraphics have announced that they’ll be collecting the webcomic ‘Sacred Heart’, by Liz Suburbia, as a one-shot graphic novel in 2015.
The publication of this collection is pretty interesting, as Suburbia will be completely redrawing the story for the book – which presumably would also give her a chance to tweak the storytelling as she sees fit, perhaps.
Sacred Heart is a story about a town where all the adults have gone missing, leaving their kids to pick up society and run in as best they can. Whereas in most cases this would lead to anarchy and crossbows and yelling, in Sacred Heart the story shows that society can more or less keep on functioning even through a dire situation like this. Sure, some aspects of the world collapse and don’t return, and there’s a constant question of whether things can be sustained – but for the most part, the kids are managing to do a half-decent job of things.
Sacred Heart will be released in Summer 2015. You can find the webcomic, still open, right here.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/4/2014
Once again the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo was a huge success. CAKE 2014 featured over 120 exhibitors and drew 2,200 attendees over the course of the weekend, a ten percent increase from last year’s show. Conference organizer Neil Brideau said that CAKE was excited to continue increasing its scope, noting that “this was the first year we’ve had a large international presence.” He highlighted some artists who travelled a long way to attend the show such as Inés Estrada of Mexico, and Philippa Rice and Luke Pearson of the UK.
Brideau also emphasized that a major part of CAKE’s mission is to support the local comics scene in Chicago. “We’re working to become a non-profit right now, and we’ve funded some scholarships. John Porcellino is doing a week-long workshop immediately following CAKE at the Chicago Publishing Resource Center. We did two half tuition scholarships for that workshop. Today, we’ve announced the Cupcake Award, which is a grant and a guaranteed half table at next year’s CAKE for someone’s who is working in minicomics and has not been published by a major publisher. Annie Koyama from Koyama Press is our special guest juror for that award this year.”
CAKE, now in its third year, has made its home at the Center on Halsted. After an especially crowded show last year, CAKE expanded from a single exhibition hall to a include a second space while simultaneously reducing the number of tables. The show was much easier to get around than in previous years, but still packed the house later in the afternoon on both days.
The goal of the CAKE organizers is to create a “balanced show, that brings a lot of different styles and experience levels together.” To achieve this, the CAKE organizers crowdsource feedback on CAKE applicants from the Chicago comics community but also retain curatorial oversight over the final list of exhibitors. It’s a hybrid approach that attempts to sidestep the gatekeeper problem of a fully curated show while also avoiding the free-for-all of a lottery show.
I asked many of the exhibitors what makes CAKE such a special show, and Chicago’s comics community such a strong one. Isabella Rotman and Amara Leipzig suggested that the city’s art colleges such as Columbia and School of the Art Institute are incubators for a lot of comics talent. Lucy Knisley noted that Chicago’s climate was ideal for cartoonists — having 7-8 months of cold weather forces folks inside and encourages the hermit-like conditions that are ideal for comics making, while the welcome arrival of summer allows time for self-promotion and energizing interaction with other artists during the convention season. Michael DeForge said that it is one of his favorite shows because there is a heavier emphasis on zines and minicomics than there is at other comparable shows. Many, many exhibitors mentioned the importance of Chicago book, zine, and comic superstore Quimby’s in promoting the work of emerging artist and providing a focal point for the local comics scene.
Now let’s hit the show floor!
Sophie McMahan had her latest issue of You Were Swell, her comic that combines loose dream-inspired narrative with 1950s and ’60s pop culture characters (such as the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Elvis). Sophie was one of many artists who was also showing off non-comics handmade objects — in this case, funky earrings made from Shrinky Dinks of her characters.
Jack Gross was among a significant contingent of Minnesota based creators at the show. Jack debuted Wizard Friends at the show, which she described as a departure from the “moody pencils” of her earlier work. I asked Jack about her unusually keen backgrounds, which are drawn from real locations in her hometown. She said she worked hard on that aspect of her comics after an especially tough critique from an art school professor. That’s the American higher education system working for you, folks.
Dawson Walker, also lately of Minnesota, showed off his latest work, The Granville Syndrome, which grew out of his thesis project at MCAD. The Granville Syndrome tells the story of a group of amateur stormchasers and deals with Walker’s own experience of migrating from Alaska to the Midwest. Walker’s cinematically wide panels are meant to evoke the wide-openess of the Midwest landscape.
One of the most physically beautiful objects I saw at the show was a CAKE debut from Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, a twelve page silkscreened mini called Amarinthine. Featuring a heavy gold metallic paper cover and three-color interiors, every page of this comic is a single panel that captures a moment in the life of a pair of childhood friends as they grow together and grow apart. This comic was a great example of how the care and craftsmanship of the physical object can add to the emotional impact of the narrative within.
Speaking of handmade books, Mita Mahato of Seattle creates beautiful comics that combine collage and traditional comics. For Mahato, the physical layering of images relates to the layered quality of her narratives. Her comics deal with nature, magical realism, and the grieving process. She is a board member of Seattle’s Short Run comics festival.
Carrie Vinarsky, who designed the poster, badges and other print materials for this year’s expo, also had some wonderful bespoke objects on display at her table. Each copy of the limited edition debut Fried Coolaid was individually bedazzled with glitter and googly eyes, and interior pages feature such surprises as a spray-painted page which is different in every copy.
At CAKE, comics come in all shapes and sizes, from massive tomes like Raymond Lemstra’s Big Mother 4 (left, with Tucker Stone for scale) to tiny volumes like Rebecca Mir Grady’s She is Restless. She is Restless volume seven, subtitled “Lost at Sea,” debuted at CAKE. Each volume contains a single fold-out page that deals with a current event from an environmental perspective. Previous volumes have been inspired by wildfires and drought conditions in the Southwest and of course, the Polar Vortex.
Leigh Luna was displaying the latest minis collected from her webcomic Clementine Fox. She told me that Clementine Fox was recently picked up by major humor comics house Andrews McMeel, who are looking to market Luna’s first major publication next year.
Ben Passmore and Erin K. Wilson’s table featured the debut of Passmore’s Daygloayhole: The Beast in Me and Wilson’s micro-mini Server. Wilson talked to me about her graphic novel Snowbird and the Kickstarter that helped her fund and create it. “I had mixed feelings about the Kickstarter,” said Wilson. “I don’t know who I thought I was that I was going to write my first graphic novel in three months.” It ended up taking about two years. “It was really hard because I had 368 backers, who were for the most part really supportive, like ‘hey, you got this! We’re just happy that you’re making it!’” But a vocal minority ended up making things uncomfortable for Wilson. In order to appease some less patient fans, Wilson began posting every page online as she finished it. “It’s not how you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to storyboard the whole book, pencil the whole book, ink the whole book, shade the whole book, and release it all at once. But I did it one page at a time.” Although she was still very happy with the end result, she felt that the pressure from her Kickstarter backers did compromise the process in some ways.
Hellen Jo, one of the convention’s Special Guests this year, also expressed some trepidation about Kickstarter. She admitted to having toyed with the idea of leveraging her popularity online to get funding for comics, but ultimately decided “I’m scared of Kickstarter.” She cited her slow work rate, saying that she wasn’t sure that Kickstarter backers could ever be patient enough for her. Jo is currently working on the second volume of Jin & Jam, a minicomic whose first volume appeared in 2008. But Jo has a good reason for working slowly on her comics: for the past year, she’s been working on a series of Girl Gang paintings which were recently collected as a monograph by Youth in Decline. She also has had full-time gigs doing storyboards for Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe and Regular Show.
Hellen Jo joined Jesse Moynihan and Jo Dery on a panel titled “24 Panels a Second,” moderated by Trubble Clubber Jeremy Tinder. The panelists started by citing some of their earliest animation influences, which included, Goofy, Garfield, Sailor Moon, Ranma ½, and Wizards by Ralph Bakshi. All of them mentioned how important their parents were in getting them into cool cartoons early in life. Although all of them loved animation from a young age, they didn’t consider it as something to pursue. Said Jesse Moynihan “Watching cartoons doesn’t translate to ‘I can do that.’ … the thing that made me think I could tell stories was comics.” Self-published comics like Cerebus and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles inspired Moynihan to create his own comics, which only later led to his work as a storyboard artist on Adventure Time. Hellen Jo’s story was similar – it was the circulation of her comics online that led to her first animation job as a Storyboard Revisionist at Cartoon Network.
What was the biggest hurdle for these creators in transitioning from comics to animation? For Hellen Jo, it was the pace: “I’ve never drawn so fast in my life.” Jesse Moynihan cited a cultural difference between comics creators and artists with formal training as animators: “All of the comics people who work on [Adventure Time] are very precious and protective about their work. The people who come from an animation background are more willing to collaborate and have less ego.”
Jesse Moynihan also took time out to sign Forming II at the Nobrow table. It’s the second volume of Moynihan’s full color trilogy that combines mythology, science fiction and humor in an epic battle for the soul of humanity. Also at the Nobrow table were samples of the new concertina book from Kellie Strom, Worse Things Happen at Sea. This intricately detailed Leporello features beautiful colors created through a chromolithographic process, a near-extinct hand color separation technique that was once used in the production of currency. Those interested in how Strom achieves the fine level of detail and vibrant coloration of his work will be interested in this process video.
The highlight of Fantagraphics’ table this year was the debut of Twelve Gems by Lane Milburn. The 150-plus page chaotic space opera, which had not been previously serialized, was sold out by 11:30 AM on Sunday. Fantagraphics’ Jacq Cohen called it Fantagraphics’ book of the year, noting that the book “sold out faster than we could have possibly imagined. It’s incredible to see Chicago supporting a local artist like Lane.” Milburn was tabling with Conor Stechschulte, whose graphic novel The Amateurs is also new this summer from Fantagraphics. The Amateurs tells the story of a pair of butchers who suddenly find that they have completely forgotten how to do their craft. Stechschulte says it was inspired by a story from Werner Herzog about an unbelievably inept butcher shop he encountered in Quito while filming Fitzcarraldo.
More from the Fantastical Epic Narrative Department: Downfall Arts’ Alan D. Caesar told me all about his ambitious series Rena Rouge. The series started with volume 37, and Caesar plans to continue the series by alternating volumes that are numbered forwards and backwards, so that eventually, volumes one and 74 will be released simultaneously. Volume 38 debuted at CAKE, and Caesar had this to say about the project: “ I like worldbuilding. I want people to feel like they’re entering a world that’s fully realized.” The comics feature jam-packed interior pages and lush covers created by offset printing colored paper with fluorescent inks — the covers look even better when viewed under a black light.
Founded by a group of Columbia College grads, Yeti Press has released eighteen books since starting in 2011. One of the eye-catching new releases at their table this year was Andrea Bell’s Rose From the Dead, which Bell described as a “dude in distress” tale. Officially debuting at CAKE was Erik Nebel’s Well Come, the first print edition of his popular tumblr comic. Well Come tells an interwoven fantasy narrative with many characters, all conveyed without words in a simple, geometric style with bold colors. Nebel told me about the origins of the vibrant color palette he employs:
“I read this book called Environmentalism in Pop Culture , and she [author Noël Sturgeon] has this point of view she calls Global Ecofeminism. She analyzes all of the stories of the last 100 years of American pop culture and makes a convincing argument that in all of the stories we tell, we’re creating this false dichotomy. Pitting things against each other that aren’t even separated, for example men and women. That’s a societal construct, the idea of gender identity. The same thing with nature and civilization. And in advertisements and general imagery, there’s black and white. Black is associated with nature, white is associated with civilization. And women, and black, and nature are lumped together, and men, and white and civilization are on the other end. It sets up this superiority where the lighter colors have this symbolic meaning where they represent something pure, more clean, sophisticated. Darker colors are natural, wild, ethnic, tribal. So when I was thinking of the color palette [for Well Come] I started out with human creatures and made them a dark red, and animals I made a light orange, because I wanted to reverse that idea that dark colors are nature and light colors are human. I wanted to take that whole idea and flip that around.”
Uncivilized Books’ CAKE presentation featured the first bound volume from the white-hot Sam Alden. It Never Happened Again includes a pair of stories in Alden’s soft pencil style. I asked Alden about the many formats and media he experiments with: “The pencil stuff is like my wife…everything else is just a fling.” Uncivilized publisher Tom K was also very excited to debut Truth is Fragmentary by Gabrielle Bell. Part travelogue and part surreal adventure, the book explores the intersections of memory, reality and imagination across three continents.
Canadian boutique publisher Koyama Press has been at CAKE every year of the conference. According to marketing manager Ed Kanerva, Koyama considers smaller conferences like CAKE as essential to the publisher’s mission of being at the forefront of the graphic arts. Like many artists at the show, Michael DeForge, who released Very Casual with Koyama last year to great acclaim, still self-publishes zines and minis even after having found a publisher for his work. DeForge said he “couldn’t imagine” not making minicomics. Asked if his rapid rise in popularity had affected him or his work, DeForge said it hadn’t and told me “I still spend most of my time in a basement.”
Koyama’s newest release at the show was Elisha Lim’s 100 Crushes. Elisha, who is based in Toronto, told me about their roots in the queer comics community and said they broke through when “Alison Bechdel wrote an intro for a comic that I dreamed of doing.” Koyama and Elisha were connected through a mutual friend, leading to the publication of 100 Crushes. “Basically it’s all different ways that I’ve met queer people on three different continents. The first chapter is about butches and having crazy crushes on them…another chapter is going with friends to the men’s changing room in stores and what it’s like to try on men’s clothes…and there’s one at the end that’s not really queer content, it’s about jealousy, and trying to draw what it feels like to feel jealous.” Elisha said they create comics primarily for the queer community but that their real audience is any “intelligent, or informed” one, and that’s they’ve been blown away by the way their work has been embraced by the comics community at large.
Another Toronto-based artist, Eric Kostiuk Williams, was debuting the first collected volume of his Hungry Bottom comics. Hungry Bottom combines Williams’ own story of self-actualization in the Toronto queer community with wide-ranging pop-culture reference and sampling. Like the three individual volumes, the Collected Hungry Bottom features a four-color risograph cover and two-color risograph interiors in an oversize 7”x10” format.
Some of the most talked about comics at the show were Gina Wynbrandt’s works inspired by “sexual humiliation” and her status as a True Belieber. Wynbrandt debuted her minicomic Someone Please Have Sex With Me earlier this Spring at Chicago Zine Fest and her comic “Fish Vagina” was featured in the 2014 CAKE anthology.
Miranda Harmon, who was singled out to me by a CAKE organizer as one of the artists to watch at the show, was tabling at a comics show for the first time ever. She had previously only brought her comics to SPX as an attendee. Harmon, a recent graduate of Goucher College, had four debut minis at CAKE: Journal Comics, More Good Demons (a menagerie of not-so-scary monsters), Peat in the Woods, and Bad Comics. Regarding the comics collected in Bad Comics: “They’re okay,” said Harmon.
Emily Hutchings was also tabling for the first time. Trained as a sculptor, Hutchings decided to try her hand at exhibiting this year after her friend Ian McDuffie sold a book of her drawings at his table last year. Hutching’s offerings included the beautifully assembled Doesn’t Matter, a starkly minimalist collection of illustrated nihilist poems.
Anna Bongiovanni debuted a minicomic collecting the Grease Bats strip they draw for Autostraddle.com . The (Mother Fuckin’) Grease Bats has the tone of a buddy comedy or sitcom even as it addresses serious issues of identity and acceptance in the queer community. Also on hand for the show was the awesome educational comic A Cheap and Easy Introduction to They/Them Pronouns. Bongiovanni created this comic in order to explain and promote the use of gender neutral pronouns for those that choose to use them. It’s a great tool and as a writer I can say I found the guide really positive and helpful. They made it accessibly priced to make it easier for people to share with friends, family and coworkers, and they plan to release more comics in the Cheap and Easy series including an upcoming pamphlet on consent within the queer community.
The Comic Nurse, MK Czerwiec, was at the show to inform about the burgeoning world of medical comics. She told me about the scene: “I started making comics during the AIDS crisis when I was working as a nurse and was so overwhelmed by what I was experiencing and couldn’t figure out how to process it. I stumbled into making comics, and it turned out to be a really effective way of dealing with what I was seeing as a nurse. I ended up getting a degree in Medical Humanities, and, this was about ten years later, I wanted to look back critically and ask ‘why did that work?’ what was it about the form that helped me process experiences, and a large question, can comics have a serious role in medicine, in education, and what can they do for our patients and providers?” Around the same time, Ian Williams was creating the website Graphic Medicine to catalog comics that told of the experience of severe illness for patients and loved ones. Soon, MK and Williams were arranging a conference based around comics and medicine. This year that conference will celebrate its fifth anniversary at John Hopkins University in Maryland. MK herself teaches at Northwestern Medical School using comics in her classrooms.
Continuing in the practical-comics vein, Isabella Rotman debuted Gatherer, an easily-pocketed illustrated guide to fifteen edible plants which can be commonly found on the East coast and in the Midwest. Her tablemate Amara Leipzig had a gorgeous new book called The Ruins, which asks, “If a person grew up with no preconceptions, would they choose science or religion?”
Rotman will be one the artists featured in the upcoming anthology Speculative Relationships. The kickstarted anthology reached its funding goal on Saturday of the convention. I spoke to editor Tyrell Cannon about the book. “Anthologies are usually bad,” he said. One of the problems is a lack of cohesion. Speculative Relationships has a tight focus: Romance comics with a science fictional setting. The PDF of the anthology should be ready this month, with print editions headed to backers by the end of July.
Odin Cabal debuted the eighth issue of his self-publishd series Midwestern Cuban Comics, which collects several stories including the multi-part epic “¿O hermano, donde esta usted?” Cabal’s comics incorporate everything from baseball to MMA to one-night stands to the fairy godmother. He’s based in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but like many artists at the show, he got his start in comics when Quimby’s began carrying his work.
Scott Roberts, creator of the Star Spangled Angel, took a long break from making comics and returned to the form about four years ago. I asked him what brought him back: “It was what had exploded, the alternative world was so much different. It was a combination of art, printing and illustration. I hadn’t really thought of comics as such a great means of expression before. I mean I loved it, I loved RAW back in the ‘80s, but I always thought you had to have a publisher.” Though Roberts said he wouldn’t mind working with a publisher, he said that’s not the goal. He encourages younger artists to think of making their comics as an ends in and of itself, and not always a jumping off platform to more money and success: “There’s no real money in [comics] anyway. If there was a lot of money in it, you’d have a lot of different personalities involved. Some of the young kids go around passing out business cards. What in the world would I do with that? Just make some comics, and I’ll look at your comics!”
At the same table, Keiler Roberts had the latest issue of Powdered Milk available. “It focuses on my daughter who’s three years old, the things she says, domestic moments. It’s more structured than some of my other work.” It was the funniest comic I read at the show.
*****
CAKE was an amazing show this year. The event continues to grow and expand and is quickly gaining recognition as one of the significant alternative comics shows on the crowded summer festival roster. There were many more brilliant self-published and small press comics than I could ever hope to chronicle here — the only way to see everything is to check out the show. Hope to see you at CAKE 2015!
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 5/9/2014
Continuing a move to acquire some books that fit in with their art comix profile while not being obvious choices, Fantagraphics will collect Wuvable Oaf, the popular LGBTQ bear-themed rom-com comic about a hairy ex-wrestler who loves cats and is on a quest to find true love. The collection will be out next March. Announcement below:
Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the acquisition of Ed Luce’s indie comic sensation Wuvable Oaf, to be released March 2015. Like Sex and the City but with adorable, ex-wrestler hairy gay men (or bears), Wuvable Oaf is Luce’s debut graphic novel. This book fills a romance comics hole by portraying a likeable gay male character that is both fully realized and relatable. Mostly playful, but sometimes serious,Wuvable Oaf captures the levity of loneliness. Luce delivers a rom-com that would leave Zack Galifianakis and Zooey Deschanel feuding over who got to play Oaf in a hypothetical movie adaptation.
Oaf is a large, hirsute, scary-looking ex-wrestler who lives in San Francisco with his adorable kitties, and listens to a lot of Morrissey. The book follows Oaf’s search for love in the big city, especially his pursuit of Eiffel, the lead singer of the black metal/queercore/progressive disco grindcore band Ejaculoid. Luce weaves friends, associates, enemies, ex-lovers, and the pasts of both men into the story of their courtship. Like Scott Pilgrim, Love and Rockets, and Archie, Wuvable Oaf explores the joys and pains of romantic conquests, set against the backdrop of the San Francisco scene. After decades of comics about boy-loves-girl, Luce finally gives readers of all orientations some insight into man-loves-man. Oaf’s silly, sweet, and sometimes sexy stories will win over everyone’s heart.
“The first indie comics I ever bought were published by Fantagraphics, including Love and Rockets, Eightball and Usagi Yojimbo,” explains cartoonist Ed Luce. “Much of Wuvable Oaf’s DNA was directly influenced by Fantagraphics publications. In putting this collection together, it’s like they’ve stepped forward to claim paternity. I couldn’t be more excited to find myself in the company of such wonderful work.”
Fantagraphics associate publisher Eric Reynolds says he’s “eager to take Ed Luce’s infectious voice and inviting visual style to a bigger stage, because I believe he’s only scratched the surface of his potential audience for the Oaf, who is one of the most singular characters to emerge from the corners of ‘alternative comics’ in several years.”
Ed Luce (pronounced “loose,” like the opposite of tight) has made a huge splash in the comics scene with his self-published comic book series. Since 2008 he’s been traveling to conventions and comics festivals all over the U.S.Wuvable Oaf has garnered a huge following of fans both in the comics world and in the queer art world. Luce lives in San Francisco with his partner and collaborator, Mark, and their kitty, Luna. He can regularly be found either under a pile of drawing paper or at a local comics festival.
WUVABLE OAF By Ed Luce March 2015 • $29.99 Hardcover • ISBN 978-1-60699-816-8 264 pages, black & white with 16 pages color
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/18/2014
This is from Xeric winner Lane Milburn, part of Baltimore’s Closed Caption Comics collective. It’s been in the works for a few years and fits nicely into the whole “wacky action genre” I’ve been seeing more and more of. The book come out in July.
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/13/2014
Summary: In this 80-page volume, Jordan Crane draws us in with two gripping and wrenching stories, one of the mundane, and the other of the fantastic. First, there is “Keeping Two.” William’s girlfriend goes missing during a trip to the supermarket, and he must look down the long dark narrow tunnel that his life will become without her. He is reading a book, but the book doesn’t help, and indeed feeds his anxieties, rendering his loss in starkly contrasting lines. The second story, “Discovering the Dark,” is 26 pages and drawn with two colors. Akihiro Akaike is employed as a repairman aboard an asteroid mining ship in the year 2033. In his spare time, he is an amateur astrophysicist, and a discovery he makes drives him steal supplies and a company ship in order to make a clandestine 7-month voyage. However, when the mining operation discovers his plans, he is forced into a rapidly deteriorating set of probabilities.
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/5/2013
I don’t know why this news hasn’t been picked up at every entertainment blog everywhere. A comic book has been optioned for a live action “tv” show. Actually not just optioned: THE SHOW IS IN PRODUCTION! And PHOTOS OF THE STARS ARE ONLINE. Granted, there are a few quirks that make this news somehow less newsworthy than fanboy casting daydreams masquerading as “exclusives.”
#1 — it’s an indie comic. Chuck Forsman’s TEOTFW was originally published as a series of mini comics, and is now a collected edition from Fantagraphics. It’s a stark, dark and intense story about two teenaged psychopaths who go on a road trip and invade an empty house. When the house’s owner comes back, even more stark and dark things happen. As I was reading this I was thinking, “Man, if they were going to make a movie out of an indie comic, this would be one to make into a movie.”
#2 — the actual title of the comic is not one that is fit for a family newspaper. TEOTFW stands for The End of the Fucking World, the mini comic’s original title.
#3 — It’s happening in England. The comic is being adapted into a series of live action videos by up and comics UK director Jonathan Entwhistle. A test pilot is being filmed, which, if picked up by Film4 will eventually be shot for release on Vimeo. And the Starkweather/Fugate-type narrative is being shfted from unenployed America to unemployed Britain.
The TV version stars Craig Roberts, best known from Submarine, and Jessica Barden (Coronation Street) as James and Alyssa, the two tortured leads. As seen on Entwhistle’s sodial media, the visuals match the comic very closely. Forsman wrote on his blog that Entwhistle came across the comics at GOSH! in London, and noted:
P.S. this doesn’t make me a millionaire or more important than you.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/26/2013
Fantagraphics has made available a 26-page PDF preview (download here) of their forthcoming Virgil ‘VIP’ Partch retrospective book that confirms this will be one of the must-have cartoon-related books of 2013. The preview will be of particular interest to readers of this site as it contains gag cartoons and other assorted drawings from Partch’s Disney animation years.
The complete 208-page hardcover, titled VIP: The Mad World of Virgil Partch, written and edited by Jonathan Barli, will ship in October 2013. The book can be pre-ordered on Amazon for $30.84.
A semi-related note: when I was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, I made a detour to the University of California, Irvine to peruse the Virgil Partch Collection. The collection, donated by Partch himself in the 1970s, contains thousands of his original drawings and cartoons, all of which are available for viewing by researchers, historians and other interested parties. It’s well worth the daytrip if you’re a Partchaholic like me.
(h/t, Matt Jones)
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/29/2013
About a month ago, Steve asked me who my favourite comic creators were, and horrible as I am at answering on the spot questions, I did manage to provide him with one name: Julia Gfrorer. If you follow mainstream comics, your most beloved authors put out work regularly, but at indie central, you get a mini-comic or a book a year, with perhaps a few contributions to anthologies. Despite this, Gfrorer’s work is consistently excellent, featuring themes of myth, folk lore, mysticism and spirituality, coupled with her fine-lined, evocative art.
She also manages the seemingly possible: discussing sex in a way that’s interesting, sexy, varying degrees of disturbing, and all disgusting fluids at the same time: her work is never patronising or affected. Her excellent first longer length comic, Black is the Colour, is due to be published by Fantagraphics in autumn, and you can currently read it in full over at the Study Group Comics site, and hopefully that should be enough to convince you to pick up a print copy when it’s out!
Here’s a sneak peek from an upcoming interview with The Beat, where Gfrorer talks about how she ‘got into comics’:
‘When I moved to Portland in 2007, I had just made a mini called “How Life Became Unbearable,” about Saint Francis of Assisi. I took it to Pony Club Gallery to consign it, and that was how I met Dylan Williams, who was a member then. Around the same time, I was in a show at Launch Pad Gallery, and I was doodling a little comic at the opening, and Sean Christensen zeroed in on me like I had flashed the comix beacon. So those guys were my first friends in my new city, and they introduced me to their friends and encouraged me to be part of their projects, so before I knew it comics were my whole world.’
You can find her site here and buy her work here
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/12/2013
This May Fantagraphics is releasing OTHER STUFF, a compilation of various strips by Peter Bagge and his friends like Dan Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez, and R. Crumb. The stories in the book are mostly outside the famed Buddy Bradley saga, but no less hilarious.
Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff includes a few lesser-known Bagge characters, including the wacky modern party girl “Lovey” and the aging bobo “Shut-Ins” — not to mention the self-explanatory “Rock ‘N’ Roll Dad” starring Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys. But many of the strips are one-off gags or short stories, often with a contemporary satirical slant, including on-site reportage like “So Much Comedy, So Little Time” (from a comedy festival) and more. Also: Dick Cheney, The Matrix, and Alien!
Other Stuff also includes a series of Bagge-written stories drawn by other cartoonists, including “Life in These United States” with Daniel Clowes, “Shamrock Squid” with Adrian Tomine, and the one-two parody punch of “Caffy” (with art by R. Crumb) and “Dildobert” (with art by Prison Pit’s Johnny Ryan)… plus a highlight of the book, the hilarious, literate and intricate exposé of “Kool-Aid Man” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bagge. (Other collaborators include the Hernandez Brothers and Danny Hellman.)
Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff
by Peter Bagge et al.
144-page color/black & white 7.25″ x 10.25″ softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-622-5
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/7/2013
The comics world was saddened last night when this statement was released. It’s hard to overstate Kim Thompson’s impact on the modern comics world—as the publisher of groundbreaking works LOVE AND ROCKETS and EIGHTBALL, the editor of everything from ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY to USAGI YOJIMBO, and one of the finest translators in comics. He’s best known for championing European comics and introducing them to a wider audience in the US.
Kim was one of my very first editors on Amazing Heroes, and every year at SPX we catch up and I learn more from him. He’s truly one of the smartest people in the comics business, and I’m sending him every good thought that I can.
Kim Thompson has been my partner at Fantagraphics Books for 35 years. He’s contributed vastly and selflessly to this company and to the comics medium and worked closely with countless fine artists over that time. This is a tough announcement to make, but everyone who knows Kim knows he’s a fighter and we remain optimistic that he’ll get through this and report back to report to work, where he belongs, doing what he loves.
– Gary Groth
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I’m sure that by now a number of people in the comics field who deal with me on a regular or semi-regular basis have noticed that I’ve been responding more spottily. This is because of ongoing health issues for the past month, which earlier this week resolved themselves in a diagnosis of lung cancer.This is still very early in the diagnosis, so I have no way of knowing the severity of my condition. I’m relatively young and (otherwise) in good health, and my hospital is top-flight, so I’m hopeful and confident that we will soon have the specifics narrowed down, set me up with a course of treatment, proceed, and lick this thing.
It is quite possible that as treatment gets underway I’ll be able to come back in and pick up some aspects of my job, maybe even quite soon. However, in the interests of keeping things rolling as smoothly as I can, I’ve transferred all my ongoing projects onto other members of the Fantagraphics team.
So if you’re expecting something from me, contact Gary Groth, Eric Reyolds, or Jason Miles and they can hook you up with whoever you need. If there are things that only I know and can deal with, lay it out for them and they’ll contact me.
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On behalf of Kim, we would like to encourage anyone who would like to reach out to him to feel free to send mail to him c/o Fantagraphics Books, 7563 Lake City Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, or email to [email protected].
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/4/2013
Instant want: Fantagraphics will be collecting Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey stories in a treasury edition. The books originally came out from Dark Horse but are joining Millionaie’s Maakie’s collections at FBI.
In November 2013 we’ll be publishing Sock Monkey Treasury: A “Tony Millionaire’s Sock Monkey” Collection! This big fat hardcover collects all the Dark Horse Sock Monkey comics, the Uncle Gabby graphic novella, The Glass Doorknob storybook, and The Inches Incident graphic novel. These comics have been hailed as modern all-ages classics and we’re delighted to bring them to you in a single, sure-to-be-gorgeous tome.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/31/2013
A new manga by the author of Solanin and a sports comic about Michael Jordan...plus some guesswork about the EC Library
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/23/2013
Continuing our look at thrills to come in 2013, Fantagraphics announced new books by two exciting indie creators, Julia Gfrörer and Ben Catmull, with some advance looks. The cover art isn't final, as attractive as it may be. Both will be out in September.
By: John,
on 12/6/2012
I didn’t know cartoonist and illustrator Lilli Carré had a tumblr of just animations, but now I do, and so do you. Holy mackerel! I’m in the middle of finishing her new book Heads or Tails, after which I’ll write a review. Spoiler alert: it’s fantastic.
(link via Maré Odomo’s on Twitter)
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/19/2012
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A few months ago, I brainstormed about how Halloween mini-comics being offered by Diamond could be used in a variety of ways to promote comics and have some fun! (Read that again… there are event suggestions and a timeline there, which I’ve paralleled below, but did not exactly duplicate.)
During C2E2, Diamond announced that in addition to the extremely successful Free Comic Book Day, a second event, linked to Halloween, would be promoted.
With the July issue of Previews, Diamond has announced the event, titled “Halloween ComicFest“, designed to help comics shops market themselves as “Halloween Headquarters”.
Sure it’s only July, but do you know where you’re getting your Halloween costume and accessories? How about a gift for the horror fan in your life? Have you decided where the best Halloween events and parties might be?
Why it’s your local comic book shop, of course!
This year, comic shops across the world will band together for Halloween ComicFest, a celebration of your local comic shops and all the comics, tricks and treats they offer. Your local comic shop already does some great Halloween events and is a great place to visit Halloween in-store events, parties, contests, sales and more!
On the next few pages, you’ll find some new offerings from comic book publishers including some new comics that will be available during your store’s Halloween ComicFest celebrations. Make sure you mark your calendars with your local comic shop’s Halloween events!
Below are the actual mini-comics offered this year, in bundles of 20, with the text from the Diamond order form. The “Final Order Cutoff” (FOC) deadline for stores is August 30, 2012. (Westfield’s deadline is August 28.)
Ask your local retailer to order the following for you, using the Diamond codes (JUL12 xxxx). You should offer to pay for them in advance, since the comics shop will most likely consider these unusual items, and be hesitant to place the order.
Of course, if they’re a cool store, they are probably participating in Halloween ComicFest, and will be happy to add your order to their store order. Bundle orders over 25 (of all titles combined) receive an additional discount for the store.
If you do not live near a comics shop, or need to have them shipped somewhere, Westfield Comics (and many other online retailers) will allow you to order them for you. The links below for each title direct to Westfield, which I selected because I’ve used them in the past, their website is easy to navigate, they offer a discount on the price. and they were quick to answer my questions regarding the first three items. (ComicsPlus offers all the titles for sale, as well.)
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/17/2012
Noah Van Sciver just wrapped up a week of diaries at TCJ . it’s a pretty quotidian thing, one panel to an activity from drunkenness to reading a comic. Good stuff.
In case we haven’t hammered you over the head with it enough, Van Sciver’s upcoming book THE HYPO, an extremely well researched look at Abraham Lincoln’s early days as a depressed young lawyer, will be one of the buzz books of the fall.
By: John,
on 8/14/2012
Panel from The Cavalier Mr. Thompson: A Sam Hill Novel by Rich Tommaso.
Click to embiggen. So lovely.
Jaime’s the best
Doralis by the tree.
It’s really pretty impressive how Beto’s built up the narrative shorthand of what that tree represents. I distinctly remember that moment where Tonantzin appeared next to it and the sudden feeling of dread it brought to the pit of my stomach.
That said, I’m a lot more interested in Maggie and Ray right now. Good to see them back after a bit of a break.
What’s the deal with the balloon boobs? Inside joke of some sort?