Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Posted by stupidmonster

The winners of the 2002 Harvey Awards were announced at the weekend and it was good to see Norwegian underground cartoonist Jason win Best New Talent.
If you haven't picked up his sublime book, Hey Wait.. yet, then do, as it is undoubtedly one of the best books released last year.

2:22 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

Steve Leiber very kindly sent me a copy of the comic he did with his wife that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Now that I've read it, I can say without reservation that it's utterly charming, and well worth your time and money.

4:35 AM |

Friday, April 26, 2002

Posted by stupidmonster

Picked up a welcome new vehicle for the excellent work of French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim; Oddballz is published by NBM Publishing, with the main focus on the accredited series McConey.

Equally exciting is the promise of an ongoing bi-monthly reprint comicbook of the fantastically luscious Donjon by Trondheim and Johann Sfar. Which is great news for people like me, who bought the books, but, have absolutely no idea what's going on.

4:38 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

Corn Is King. And Joe Marshall is a talented man. (via Coudal Partners)

5:07 AM |

Wednesday, April 24, 2002

Posted by kookymojo

This is great: Herb Lock's History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium. There's some really powerful imagery in there. (via NeuroTwitch)

8:04 AM |

Friday, April 19, 2002

Posted by kookymojo

OPi8 has some good online comics. I just read and dug Reflected Glory, but there's a lot of good stuff there.

7:16 AM |

Posted by Dave

Matt Madden is doing some interesting formal experiments/nicely executed pastiches/hilarious mucking about in his Exercises in Style pieces at Indy Magazine. Take a look.

2:42 AM |

Thursday, April 18, 2002

Posted by stupidmonster

Shock of the week! A new issue of Joe Matt's Peepshow hits the shelves! (How long has it been? Two years?)
It's probably his best yet too. And if that's not enough, there's an indepth revealing interview at www.twohandedman.com.

2:54 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

The Amy Unbounded book is out today! Go and buy a copy! Then Rachel can afford to collect the first six issues, like she wants to (I'm not sure why she's collecting them that way round, but you don't need the first issues to understand the later stories).

7:17 AM |

Posted by kookymojo

Samples of the Spider-Man story done by Pete Bagge (in the shops now, I believe) are up online: Cover, page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4. Looks like I might be picking up a Spider-Man comic for the third time in my life -- and that this time it'll be worth it.

7:10 AM |

Posted by stupidmonster

London Pub Meet
The next London pub meet will take place Saturday 4th May. There is also a change of venue; we will be meeting in the Fitzroy Tavern on the corner of Windmill Street and Charlotte Street, W1. Map.
The nearest tubes are Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road.
The bar we will be using is the Artist and Writers bar, downstairs. The last meeting started at 4.00pm and carried on well into the evening; we'll stick to the same format this time too.
We also want people to bring along their latest comic, or work in progress, as this encouraged helpful criticism and lively debate at the last meet. You could even bring along fanzines and comics that you think others may find of interest.
Look forward to seeing you all there.

3:22 AM |

Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Posted by Pete

With Drawn and Quarterly setting the pace and The Comics Journal joining the game with their summer and winter specials, I was wondering what the next Top Shelf anthology would be like. Seems it's going to be a good one. 336 pages long, full colour section, and a roster including Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie, Chris Ware, Seth, the Robot Publishing gang, David Chelsea, Steve Weissman, James Kochalka, Matt Madden, James Sturm and Mack White, plus the usual selection of great stuff by people you've never heard off. Looks like being a good year for anthologies.

5:31 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

Steve Leiber and his wife Sara Ryan are selling a chapbook version of their Eisner Award-nominated short story, Me And Edith Head. You can buy a copy from Steve's site. (If anyone with a credit card wants to donate a copy to me, I wouldn't complain!)

3:44 AM |

Posted by Caption

Caption is Oxford's annual small-press comics convention. Held in the Oxford Union on the 17th and 18th of August, Caption 2002 will feature guests, panel discussions, workshops, stalls and a cheap bar. This year's theme will be 'noir'.

As ever, you will be able to:

  • Case the comic selection on the small-press stalls - Slip us your own work and we'll sell it for you on the Caption stall
  • Get your hands on some unique original art from our charity auction
  • Create something cool in one of our workshops (including Jeremy's Killer Comic Clue-Dunnit)
  • Check out our guest speakers (to be confirmed)
  • Share your views at our discussion panels
  • Thrill to the stylish pastiches of the National Theatre Of Earth Prime
  • Take home a programme chock-full of information, articles and black-and-white reproductions of original art from the auction
  • Take a stroll through the exhibition in Art Alley
  • Hang out in the bar or gardens

Prices will be £9 in advance (£6 students/unwaged) or £12 on the door for the whole weekend. Sunday-only admission will be £3 in advance or on the door. If you're feeling generous, Friend Of Caption membership is £20. T-shirts will be available for pre-order only at £12 each. If you book early, we'll keep you informed of speaker and event details as they crystallize.

Any donations for the charity auction will be gladly received; please get in touch. ALL auction proceeds will go to organisations running comics workshops. We'd also love appropriate art for the programme, and 16 page mini-comics for our 'Little Black (Comic)Book' exhibition.

Please spread the word! Caption's success is down to the people who come along, so let us know if you could use multiple flyers or put up a poster, or you know of somewhere we should be advertising.

We'd also love to hear from you if you would like to be on a panel (tentative themes 'Who Killed British Small Press?' and 'The Dark Side of Small Press') or know someone who might; if you have an idea for a discussion, workshop or guest, or if you'd like to get involved in any other way.

You can e-mail us at caption2002@caption.org, or visit the website at www.caption.org.

2:29 AM |

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Posted by kookymojo

"Rocket" Scott Mills is having a summer sale (already?) -- $20.00 gets you one of everything from his site. I can recommend Cells, Big Clay Pot and the new Bubba & Smoot book (OK, I haven't read it yet, but the first one was fab. Out of print now, though.)

9:02 AM |

Saturday, April 13, 2002

Posted by stupidmonster

Comixwerks is an interesting collective of U.S. mini-comic artists. Alongside the online comics, the site also includes interactive comicstrip experiments and an interview with John Porcellino.

11:48 AM |

Friday, April 12, 2002

Posted by Jez

BBC Online has a short article about Comics' Greatest Thinker, Scott McCloud. If you're unfamiliar with his ideas, it's a gentle introduction. If you've been around the block with Scott a few times already, it'll do to remind you why he's so influencial, even amongst those who rubbish him.

4:36 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

Cat and Girl see Death at Denny's. More at catandgirl.com. (via the Lukelog)

9:02 AM |

Thursday, April 11, 2002

Posted by kookymojo

Damn, Pete beat me to posting the link below! Here, have some insanely psychedelic Japanese art, instead. Fans of Jim Woodring will adore it. And so should the rest of you!

4:50 AM |

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Posted by Pete

Drew Weing's The Journal Comic - a daily journal, done as a comic.

9:42 AM |

Tuesday, April 09, 2002

Posted by Pete

It's been months, possibly a year even, since a post about The Big Hairy One.

Here's an interview between him and That Bloke Off Radio 2 On Saturday Mornings on The Idler.

I got chucked out of school when I was 17 which is more or less when my education started. The way that school seemed to me was that there was an overt curriculum - reading, writing and arithmetic - and a covert curriculum, which was more or less punctuality, obedience and the acceptence of monotony… In a lot of cases it seemed that school was like aversion therapy. It wasn't there to teach you knowledge, it was there to put you off learning. You'd associate learning or reading with work and you'd associate work with drudgery. This is why most people are happy to just sit down in front of the televsion at night. "I'm not actually doing any work, therefore I must be having a perfect time."

(From ecc)

5:18 PM |

Monday, April 08, 2002

Posted by kookymojo

Great, extensive interview with the marvellous Carla Speed McNeil over at Ninth Art. If you haven't checked out Finder yet, then get your hands on a copy of the first trade, pronto, because you're missing out. Don't just take my word for it.

6:19 AM |

Posted by kookymojo

Pete says I always post here at about 11 o'clock in the morning, and I guess today is no exception. Don't Play, The Game's Not Safe.

3:12 AM |

Sunday, April 07, 2002

Posted by Pete

Shiga is a cartoonist of the somewhat manic brigade. Of special interest on this site is his/her interactive comics bit where s/he describes the crazy production ideas that came to mind. I went through a faze like this once. You should too.

Theater Eroika was pure folly on my part. Imagine if you will, five moveable wheels which the reader could crank through slots in the outer shell. The outer shell contained a window through which you could see one of up to 24 panels printed on the wheels below. Wheels contained windows as well so that you could see the panels on the wheels behind them. And on top of all this, the story was branching!

Originally, I planned to mass produce Theater Eroika and assemble them by hand. However each unit required 113 individual cuts. Earlier prototypes featured bars that slid along troughs. This gave way to wheels as they only had a single friction point. Friction between the wheels, however, proved to be too much of a problem and the project was finally scrapped.

7:04 PM |

Posted by Pete

Kevin Huizenga runs the usscatastrophe shop from which I recently received a HUGE pack of minis all of which were good. In fact 90% of them were really really good and I ordered one of everything. So go order stuff.

Of the really really good ones, Kev's own comics stood out. He's on to something special and could well be the next-big-thing, as it were. Supermonster #14 is good.

6:32 PM |

Posted by Pete

The Montclarian by Ron Rege on usscatastrophe is a cool little mini comic (ie it's very small) and comes recommended. But check out that use of Flash! Very neat and actually aids the reading process.

6:16 PM |

Posted by Pete

The Caption convention committee will be joining this weblog soon posting information about the forthcoming August event. They've got a community blog here, which while not officially for public consumption (see the Caption.org site for official stuff), might be of interest to anyone wondering about the planning that goes on and the mindsets of those involved. I expect they'd welcome comments from potential attendees as well.

5:30 PM |

Friday, April 05, 2002

Posted by Pete

Jeremy Dennis' weekly strip reaches number 52. Happy first birthday.

2:27 PM |

Posted by Dave

Almost missed this good news in the Grauniad. Best cartoonist in the country Steve Bell has had a libel action against him dropped by Mr Brian Souter (who is in no way homophobic). This will have cost Mr Souter (the liberality of whose views cannot be over-stressed) a great deal of money. Shame.

1:36 PM |

Posted by Pete

Why self publish? - a discussion thread on Sequential Tart.

6:03 AM |

Posted by kookymojo

Aspiring professionals are true masters of self-delusion about their time management. They arrive at conventions with scant portfolios, telling editors and art directors how little time they had to create new works to show. If one is having that much trouble coming up with the time to create pages and paintings when one is an amateur, how the heck does one expect to find the time to do the work as a professional? You’ve got time to go to the movies. You’ve got time to watch television. You’ve got time to go to a convention. Then, you’ve got time to get some work done.
Colleen Doran has a new column on creating comics professionally over at Slushfactory. With so much experience behind her, it's worth a look if that's a direction you're interested in.

She's also experiencing negative fallout following the LPC incident detailed below, and is having to sell her covers to make up the loss. Give them a good home.

2:18 AM |

Thursday, April 04, 2002

Posted by Pete

Fantagraphics have started posting Online Comics on their site....

Here at Fantagraphics, we receive a number of short story submissions from promising young cartoonists that we can't find a home for in this anthology-deprived era we live in. Rather than let them linger in obscurity, we've decided to start running the cream of the crop on the website.
First up is Blank Slate by Alex Fellows

4:26 PM |

Posted by Pete

TOP SHELF SAVED BY COMICS COMMUNITY IN RECORD 12 HOURS

And thanks to everyone who's ordering via BugPowder. This is part of it even though it hasn't gone off yet.

Dear Comics Fans,

What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday morning at 8:00AM, April 3rd, Top Shelf was effectively put out of business, and on Tuesday evening by 8:00PM, April 3rd, Top Shelf was remarkably back in business. There are not words suitable to express how honored and thankful we are that within 12 hours this amazing comics community took it upon itself to bring us back to life. And in this case, it might also be said that the power of the internet was fully realized.

On Tuesday, after we made the announcement of our book trade distributor filing for Chapter 11 (and the subsequent fatal impact that this had on our own operation), we received over 200 phone orders and 850 on-line and email orders to boot. This staggering 1000 orders has not only made us operational again (and put several thousand copies of our graphic novels into circulation), but has also reaffirmed to us that the comics industry is back, revitalized, and ready to take on the world. We're even estimating that over 100,000 people received the news or were personally involved in the discussion of this on-line event on that day.

With this overwhelming support, combined with the (now contradictory) fact that Top Shelf has always prided itself that every order would ship out the very next day, we ask for your patience in letting us get all of these graphic novels, comics, and CDs to you. We hope to have everything shipped out within the next few weeks. In the meantime, if all this activity has made you curious about our books, we would encourage you to ask for them at your local retailer, so that everyone along the chain, retailers and distributors alike, can also benefit from this spur of interest. And while this interest in diversity is at the forefront of everyone's mind, we encourage you to continue in the exploration and discussion of comics from all the publishers doing quality work these days: DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, CrossGen, Viz, Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, Oni Press, NBM, Drawn & Quarterly, Cartoon Books, Alternative Comics, Highwater Books, the publishers we represent (like Eddie Campbell Comics, etc.), and all the rest (that we apologize for not having the space to mention by name today).

If we've learned anything over these last seven years - and witnessed it absolutely this week - we're all in this together. And the growth and development of this amazing medium is in the most capable hands possible: the fans of this industry.

We'd also like to take a moment to give a special thank you to a few extraordinary people and organizations:

-- Warren Ellis and the Warren Ellis Forum. We've always known that the Warren Ellis Forum was a formidable entity, dedicated to the discussion and support of quality comics all over the industry, but their mobilization in this instance was unprecedented. We can't absolutely determine what percentage of all the orders were from this distinguished group, but our estimation is that it was significant. We cannot thank Warren or the supporters of his forum enough. -- . Mark Alessi and the CrossGen staff collectively bought $5,000.00 worth of graphic novels and will donate them to the public library system. This completely novel and generous gesture not only helped to keep us going (in a big way), but also promises to expose hundreds of people and libraries to what comics can bring to the world of art and literature. This stunned us, and is a testament to CrossGen's contribution to our industry. -- Rick Veitch and Matt Brady of comiccon.com's Spash and Newsarama pages. Their amazing coverage, on-line discussions, and links for this event spurred on an uncountable array of support from the industry. -- Neil Gaiman. Neil took it upon himself to discuss our situation within his daily on-line journal, which just happens to be the most visited daily journal on the web. And since he's been known to have a fan or two (including us), we've been getting a nice bit of support from there as well. -- And no less amazing than that of the above, the collective efforts of the crews at artbomb.net, sequentialtart.com, comicbookresources.com, comicbookgalaxy.com, icv2.com, grayhavenmagazine.com, popimage.com, shotgunreviews.com, etc., whom all rallied their subscribers, who in turn proudly stated that they had come from one of these very active sites.

-- And lastly, but never least, the comics retailing and distributing community. They are the front line of our industry, and behind the scenes they have always been the ones that have kept the independent publisher alive. The show of support from this community has not only been amazing on this particular day, but has ALWAYS been there from the first moment we entered the business. They have been the group that has supported us the most.

Again, we want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts -- we could not have done it without you. Top Shelp will continue to try and put out the best books possible, and we look forward to not only thanking each an every one of you personally at the Cons this summer, but also being able to now make some rather cool announcements in the coming weeks that should be fun and beneficial for the entire industry as well.

On behalf of Brett Warnock and myself

Truly, your friend thru comics,

Chris Staros
Top Shelf Productions
PO Box 1282
Marietta, GA 30061-1282
USA

(770) 425-0551
(770) 427-6395 (fax)
staros@bellsouth.net topshelfcomix.com

1:33 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

Other publishers are going to suffer a negative effect from this situation, too. If you want to help out, and you have a credit card, go and order some books online from the following publishers who all deserve your attention:

Drawn & Quarterly
Highwater Books
Lightspeed Press
Metaphrog
Exhibit A Press
Mighty Gremlin

If anyone else is likely to suffer from the knock-on effect, get in touch and we'll plug you here. Heck, if I had a credit card, I'd be spending like crazy right now!

2:09 AM |

Wednesday, April 03, 2002

Posted by Pete

COMICON.com Splash has the letter LPC sent to their suppliers plus more stuff related to the Top Shelf situation.

4:10 PM |

Posted by Pete

The Top Shelf / LPC thing has really proven to me, once again, exactly what the Internet is for. Within four hours it had been mentioned on nearly every comics related mailing list, message board and news site I frequent. Five years ago this would have taken weeks to get out. So far I've got a $200 order together from various people so the plan posted before is definitely go.

1:33 PM |

Posted by Pete

Emergency resurrection of BugPowder Distribution

If you want to help the Top Shelf situation but live in the UK and don't want to order direct, I'm placing an order for some stuff in the next few days. People are welcome to join this order. Let me know what you want and I'll put it on my card. When it comes through I'll send it on. We'll split the surface mail costs proportionally and I'll forward stuff at no extra change.

If you're interested, get in touch.

Alternatively, go buy Top Shelf stuff from your local shop, explain why you're buying it and request that they re-order ASAP.

11:19 AM |

Posted by Pete

Anna beat me to it. Here's the open letter from Chris Staros...

Dear Comics Fans,

We have just been informed this week that our book trade distributor has filed for bankrupcy (Chapter 11). They will continue to operate and hopefully recover ˆ and we will support this all we can (as our industry needs them, and they are good people) ˆ but unfortunately, this has happened at a time when they owed us an enormous sum of money (over $80,000.00 minus returns). And to make matters worse, the most recent check they cut us, for almost $20,000.00, bounced this week, in turn causing the last 30 checks we wrote to printers, conventions, cartoonists ˆ practically every aspect of the business ˆ to bounce (or be held) in turn.

To put it bluntly, even with all the hard work we've put in over the years, if we don't raise $20,000 this month, it could realistically force us to suspend publishing operations for the foreseeable future. It's hard to believe but a big domino has fallen right on top of us at the worst time possible. So, that leaves us no choice but to be honest and ask for your help.

If 400-500 of you can find it in your hearts to each spend around fifty bucks on our core list of books below, this would literally pull us through ˆ We mean that. We've got such a strong future schedule, and so many cool things to announce soon (including two more Alan Moore projects and two Film & TV projects), that I'd hate to think that we'd have to pull the plug right before we just were about to arrive.

In any event, if you can find it in your hearts to help us out, we will be eternally grateful. We'll be manning the phones personally on this "drive," and we'll also be sure to keep you informed -- hopefully letting all of you know in three-to-four weeks that everything's okay (with your help, that is).

On behalf of Brett Warnock and myself.

Chris Staros
Top Shelf Productions
PO Box 1282
Marietta, GA 30061-1282
USA

(770) 425-0551

staros@bellsouth.net
topshelfcomix.com

11:06 AM |

Posted by kookymojo

Worrying news for the future of independent comics: Distributor Files For Bankruptcy. This is going to have a knock-on effect across the whole industry. Top Shelf are already feeling the fallout. You know what to do people: go and buy some of their books NOW, or you may never be able to buy them again.

5:27 AM |

Posted by kookymojo

I recently picked up some old copies of Nocturnal Emissions from the early 90s, liked what I saw, and wondered what had happened to creator Fiona Smyth. Delighted, therefore, to discover her fab site. (via GMT Plus 9, a brilliant resource for comics and art links)

5:15 AM |

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

Posted by Pete

SPACE is the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo taking place in Ohio, USA this month. Their site has LOADS of links.

3:59 PM |

Posted by Pete

Borderline #9 is out, available from it's new home.

3:46 PM |

Posted by Pete

The Dimestore Productions guys have set up The Small Press Association Forum for discussion of all things small press. It's a pretty busy place with a US bias but definitely of interest.

3:27 PM |

Posted by kookymojo

Interested in making your own comics? Have you read "Hopelessly Lost...But Making Good Time" by Pam Bliss yet? You haven't? Then go and take a look at Part 13. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there's a menu for the 12 previous installments.

And, if that wasn't enough, Amy Unbounded creator, Rachel Hartman, has advice on producing a trade paperback with help from the Xeric Foundation here.

5:09 AM |

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