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Saturday, March 06, 2004
artblog will be observing a moment of silence today:
"graphic novels are good for you."
posted by peter! 3:26 PM EST permalink
Friday, March 05, 2004
new review: creature tech by doug tennapel
"I'd say it's horror adventure if it wasn't so charming and funny. I'd say it's lighthearted romance if there weren't so many dismemberments. Just when you think it's not taking itself seriously at all, it gives you a little something to ponder. Just when you think it's buckling down to put on a sober face, it throws a goofy curveball. Really, it's hard to pin CREATURE TECH down with a label, except 'fun'."
(more from dan curtis johnson)
posted by peter! 2:26 AM EST permalink
worth a thousand words: here's a good piece on wordless graphic novels from the library journal: "Wordless graphic novels offer a variety of themes, presented without the restriction of language or aimed at a particular level of literacy. The following examples are guaranteed to whet the visual curiosity of adult readers. Keep in mind, though, that these are not picture books for children: many present realistic adult situations and Goya-like fantasy in explicit detail."
  
(thanks again, jeff.)
posted by peter! 1:21 AM EST permalink
i would never say no to calendar girl: "I saw you trying to hide that Fantastic Four you were reading on the bus. You don't have to be embarrassed. Comic books are cool. Really. This week I want you to take a pill for your pancreatitis and jet over to Excalibur Books & Comics for some shameless perusing. Do it for me. XO, Calendar Girl." more in this unusual expose on excalibur comics from today's oregonian.
posted by peter! 1:18 AM EST permalink
i also can't think of a better way to spend four pounds: march 20th is the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing 2004 festival in London: "Join us at the Octagon for a fun packed day of web and mini comix action where over 30 of the UK's current leading web and mini comix creators will be exhibiting and selling their work. Buy comix, talk to the creators, find out how you can do it, or have industry veterans review your portfolio. It's all happening at the Octagon, see you there." more info here.
posted by peter! 1:15 AM EST permalink
fuck you, comics: the comic book direct market has spoken: "JANUARY 2004: ONE OF EVERY TWO COMICS SOLD ARE PUBLISHED BY MARVEL! After one full year of leading the industry Market Share of Monthly Units Sold, Marvel begins 2004 with greater than 48% of January Unit Sales and greater than 38% of Dollar share with a powerful January lineup at the beginning of a strong, new year." playing the flute while rome burns, we are.
posted by peter! 1:04 AM EST permalink
poop: everytime i get a link to this site, i always get excited about the prospect of a deep and meaningful treatise about scheisse. but, alas, it's always just about comics. anyway, an interview with graham annable at popthought.com: "No children as of yet, I used to have some goldfish but they unfortunately died and so I find myself without any pets right now either."
posted by peter! 12:48 AM EST permalink
work safe porn courtesy of kelly sue
posted by peter! 12:43 AM EST permalink
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Peter Bagge has begun a strip in that venerable publication, the Weekly World News all about-- wait for it-- BAT BOY.
posted by Matt 1:23 PM EST permalink
Alan David Doane is on a roll with this excellent interview with Alan Moore.
posted by Matt 12:54 PM EST permalink
pulsomatic 9000 watch: here's a bit from an "interview" with john byrne at the pulse:
"THE PULSE: You've been in the industry longer than I've been reading comics. What do you view as the top five improvements to comic books - be it production, creation-wise, or another aspect. What has helped the industry thrive and grow since you became a professional?
BYRNE: Overall, the industry has been SHRINKING since I became a Pro. There was that brief, Speculator driven upward surge in the '90s, but the sales today are pathetic compared to when I came in -- and sales then were considered so bad the Industry was expected to die at any moment. Today, a book that sells 100,000 copies is considered a huge success. When I was doing UNCANNY X-MEN, that's about where the book hovered, and it was in constant danger of cancellation!
THE PULSE: Flipside, what do you view as the five biggest determents or cons that have hurt comics in the time since you began working in the medium?"
uh, he already flipped the question, love.
posted by peter! 10:33 AM EST permalink
100 years of seuss: not sure "happy birthday" is in order, all things considered, but i do love this guy: "March 2 [marked] the 100th birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Doctor Seuss. The beloved American children's writer, who died in 1991, is known for playful rhymed stories like The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Yertle the Turtle. More than 200 million copies of his works have been sold around the world. They've been translated into 20 languages and inspired television shows and films, including a recent holiday version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas." more at voanews.com.
posted by peter! 2:11 AM EST permalink
fun and games: cartoonist thomas herpich, whose upcoming graphic novel gongwanadon is due this june from alternative comics, has illustrated an online game for altoids, the curiously strong mint company: "World class loser, Big Bad Al, has a hot date with local celebrity punk rocker, Sheena Gothskull, in the Goth Room of Club Nightclub. He must find his way there using clues, found items and Altoids Strips. Can you get him in there?" click here to try.
edit: more info about this story right here. thanks, jeff!
posted by peter! 2:06 AM EST permalink
yes, i'm an equal opportunity snide bastard: sometime in the past week or so, i ran a mocking bit about the resurgence of christian comics. well, here's a companion piece featuring jewish superheroes, courtesy of JTA: "They're as unlikely a bunch of superheroes as there ever were: Menorah Man, Dreidel Maidel, Minyan Man, Magen David, Kipa Kid, Shabbas Queen and Matzah Woman. But on creator Alan Oirich's glossy comic book pages, the Jewish Hero Corps leaps, spins and multiplies to fight the enemy Fobots -- robots charged with stealing Jewish memories." i shit you not, despite mocking my own tribe.
posted by peter! 1:53 AM EST permalink
susie b: if you enjoyed the web comic we posted last week by susannah breslin, you might be interested in Things in New Orleans That I Should Be Writing About Since I've Been Living Here for Six Weeks But Haven't Done So Yet: "5. The Things Men Call Me. Baby. Darling. Doll. Sweetie. Honey. Precious. Other names. Sometimes all these words in the course of one or two or three sentences. My favorite is Sweet Girl. I am, after all, not a Sweet Girl. I have a sour expression and a rotten attitude. They don't seem to care." more at pindeldyboz.com.
posted by peter! 1:46 AM EST permalink
once upon a time in the west: oni press has announced that they will be releasing a new graphic novel from scott morse this june: "A modern-day heist tale, Morse’s SPAGHETTI WESTERN is a full-length adventure that tips its ten-gallon hat to the films of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood that sparked a revolution in the Western genre in the mid-‘60s." more right here. they've also posted an interview with blue monday creator chynna clugston-major over here.
posted by peter! 1:39 AM EST permalink
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
new review: gemma bovery by posy simmonds
"GEMMA BOVERY is the story of one woman's life, examined after her death, as an outsider who was obsessed with her searches for answers. Digging into her secret diaries, Raymond Joubert uncovers the trail of how one man's rejection drove her to another man's acceptance, and how she came to the small French township he calls home. While his initial fascination with her was based on the similarity of her name to the Flaubert novel, Madame Bovary, he is soon drawn into a drama that parallels the fiction he so admires in surprising ways."
(more from jamie s. rich)
posted by peter! 2:28 AM EST permalink
hellblazer, i guess: zap2it recently visited the set of the new constantine film based on the enduring comic book series hellblazer from vertigo comics and had this to report: "The script teams our dark hero [keanu reeves] with skeptical policewoman Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) to solve the mysterious suicide of her twin sister (also played by Weisz). Their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists just beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles, where they get caught in a catastrophic series of otherworldly events that leads them straight to hell. Running parallel to Constantine's story, is the story of a young boy called the Scavenger, who inadvertently finds a relic, the Spear of Destiny, which possesses him and sends him on a mission that will eventually collide with Constantine's."
posted by peter! 12:49 AM EST permalink
oh, god, i really do hate comics: "Janet Van Dyne lies in bed, moaning with pleasure, surrounded by scattered clothes and wine bottles. As she quiets down, Henry Pym, a man no more than half an inch tall, crawls out from under the sheets. Pym remarks: 'All right, Jan. Your turn.' This racy scene may sound like something from a bizarre pornographic film, but in fact it is a page out of the October 2003 issue of Marvel Comics' The Avengers, featuring the Astonishing Ant-Man and his partner-in-love - as well as in justice - The Wasp." more from texas a&m's battalion (parents, it's never too late to get your tuition money back).
posted by peter! 12:45 AM EST permalink
get your war on (again): picked this press release up on yahoo! about the impending sequel to last year's highly successful political comic strip satire from david rees: "Get Your War On II includes more than 150 new comics. Rees has been a contributor to Rolling Stone since January 2002. Get Your War On II will collect the comics that have appeared in every issue of Rolling Stone, along with never-before-published comics appearing for the first time in this book. Get Your War On started as an Internet phenomenon, garnering millions of hits per day, and when originally collected as a book, became a BookSense national bestseller, a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and a Boston Globe bestseller. It has been a bona fide underground publishing sensation since its creation soon after September 11. Get Your War On highlighted the absurdity of current events by translating them into the foul-mouthed ravings of a bunch of clip-art middle-management office drones, making readers laugh while raising their consciousness about the state of the world."
posted by peter! 12:35 AM EST permalink
more library love: the biloxi sun herald out of mississippi ran this piece about ocean springs municipal library and their success to get kids reading again via the use of graphic novels: "Designed to reach an audience accustomed to computers and videos, the illustrated readers, often referred to as graphic novels, are fuller-length comic books with more of a plot than traditionally found in the comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Comic books that used to be fantastic nonsense are now edgy, hip and relevant, he said. 'They're a wonderful example of the blending of literature and art, and they have great appeal to the high school and young adult age group,' said Ocean Springs librarian Jill Tempest, who wrote the grant."
posted by peter! 12:32 AM EST permalink
speaking of interviews: alan david doane has five questions for cerebus creator dave sim: "The biggest success I could hope for is to have made a place for large, self-contained graphic novels in the comic book medium, as opposed to open-ended, iconic, trademark-based creativity. No sequels, no prequels. Beginning, middle and end."
plus, five questions for johnny ryan of angry youth comics.
posted by peter! 12:26 AM EST permalink
tarts! the march update of sequential tart is now online, featuring interviews with john allison, tony bedard, j.m. dematteis, josh lesnick, paul sizer and jim mahfood.
posted by peter! 12:20 AM EST permalink
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
polite winter: brilliant web comic by james jean and kenichi hoshine:
[thanks, tom, for the link]
posted by peter! 11:00 AM EST permalink
world conquest by comics geeks: the korea times ran this interesting piece about a new group dedicated to promoting korean comics and, uh, world domination: "Half kidding, half shenanigans, but at least one thing about the story is true. The informal organization Dugoboza (Wait and See) has been doing things to lead general readers into the world of comics, a field that is familiar but has never been taken seriously generally and too seriously by some. And as the first big fruit of their efforts, the 'creatures' recently published a book named Manhwa Sekye Jungbok (Comics World Conquest), the first introduction of the contemporary Korean comics scene. It is a significant landmark for sure, since there have been several books talking about the genre before, but all of them were simply about drawing techniques, collections of reviews of particular artists or works, or introductions of Japanese comics. But world conquest?"
posted by peter! 10:48 AM EST permalink
comics animate reading skills: according to this piece from the sun-sentinel, boynton beach high school in florida is having a lot of success with graphic novels: "Will Heckman, the school's media specialist, thinks the school's growing graphic novel collection is keeping kids out of trouble and hooking them on reading, albeit in a nontraditional format. In its first year, almost half the 600-book collection is usually checked out of the library. Acquired with about $5,000 from the Palm Beach County School District, the books account for 1 percent of the library's collection but 50 percent of the books students check out."
posted by peter! 10:44 AM EST permalink
comic books have last laugh: it's a bit all over the place, but this article from the denver post attempts to get its head around the current state of comics (i think): "The fastest-growing segment of the comics world is graphic novels -- collections of serialized comics, current or classic, in book form, such as Marvel Masterworks. According to ICv2, a Madison, Wis.-based Web site and publishing company that tracks the comics industry, U.S. retailers sold about $100 million worth of graphic novels in 2002, up from $75 million in 2001. Milton Griepp, the firm's owner, expects graphic novels to eventually outsell comic books... If the adolescent male is still the comics industry's central customer, the client base has expanded in recent years to include nearly every demographic imaginable. This diffusion of interest can be attributed in part to the increased use of the Internet and the introduction of new types of comics, such as translated Japanese manga, which now make up more than half of the graphic novels sales in bookstores."
posted by peter! 10:38 AM EST permalink
Monday, March 01, 2004
monkeying around: the sunday times out of johannesburg, south africa, ran this expose on cartoonist joe daly and the recent success of his cape town-based graphic novel, the red monkey: " 'Cape Town is a great setting because it's exotic and seedy, but my main influence was [Belgian comic book character] Tintin. He always goes off to these exotic places and gets involved with these seedy underworld characters...In English-speaking countries comics are for a few freaks,' he said. 'In France they are for everyone.' "
posted by peter! 11:06 AM EST permalink
the doctor is in: sciscoop, the science and technology news forum, caught up with cartoonist and biologist jay hosler in this interview, where the clan apis author talks about his upcoming work: "My next project will focus on the life of Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Cajal was Spain's greatest scientist and the father of modern neurobiology. He won the Nobel prize for his work as a histologist. For those that don't know, a histologist stains slices of animal and plant tissue to examine the microanatomy of a particular organ or tissue. Cajal's research provided some of the first concrete evidence that the nervous system was composed of individual cells (that we now know as neurons) and not a network of phyically linked cells acting as a sort of nerve net."
posted by peter! 11:01 AM EST permalink
urban dreaming: i think i ran into these cats at APE, but i got a note from a collective of latin american indy cartoonists informing us of a high quality, english-language anthology that they have put together called urban dreams: "Inside this book you will find new stories of modern fantasy as told by the new batch of Latin America's finest comic artists and writers. From a leprechaun remembering the lost magic, to a postmodernist adam and eve, these stories tells us that nothing is quite what it seems." a 5-page preview of a story by santiago casares and luis sopelana can also be found on the site.
posted by peter! 10:51 AM EST permalink
no doubt: adam sacks has posted a 17-page preview (!) of his upcoming graphic novel salmon doubts due this may from alternative comics: "The characters in Salmon Doubts fall outside the conventions of the 'funny animal' or 'anthropomorphic' comics genres -- they look like animals, and do not wear little waistcoats or drive little automobiles. But saddled with the full weight of consciousness and speech, they testify just as much to the Human Condition as to Natural Selection. The reader who falls into the distinctive rhythm of life in Salmon Doubts will find it neither carefree nor idyllic, but will be very reluctant to leave."
posted by peter! 10:40 AM EST permalink
Sunday, February 29, 2004
speaking of ape: well, the good news is that the SF weekly featured the alternative press expo (APE) as their cover story this week. the bad news is that they ripped it a new asshole: "The exhibitors didn't help. Over and over, I opened gorgeously packaged books and zines to read them, but was put off by crazy-busy graphics, tiny type, quick scenes that made no sense (except, maybe, to the writer), or personal tales that I just couldn't relate to. Many, perhaps most, of the publications read like illustrated teenage diaries or youthful fantasies -- a lot of dark, gothic, creepy images; a lot of naked chicks; a lot of suicide; a lot of aliens. Not a lot of adult stories. As Vale said when we were talking about the show, 'Everything here is independent publishing.' Unfortunately, 'independent' usually translated to 'unreadable.' "
[colleen marlow]
posted by peter! 6:31 PM EST permalink
thank you, jeff mason, for consolidating my pseudonyms into one easy to remember handle:
posted by peter! 6:21 PM EST permalink
archives:
11/30/2003 - 12/06/2003
12/07/2003 - 12/13/2003
12/14/2003 - 12/20/2003
12/21/2003 - 12/27/2003
12/28/2003 - 01/03/2004
01/04/2004 - 01/10/2004
01/11/2004 - 01/17/2004
01/18/2004 - 01/24/2004
01/25/2004 - 01/31/2004
02/01/2004 - 02/07/2004
02/08/2004 - 02/14/2004
02/15/2004 - 02/21/2004
02/22/2004 - 02/28/2004
02/29/2004 - 03/06/2004
03/07/2004 - 03/13/2004
03/14/2004 - 03/20/2004
03/21/2004 - 03/27/2004
03/28/2004 - 04/03/2004
04/04/2004 - 04/10/2004
04/11/2004 - 04/17/2004
04/18/2004 - 04/24/2004
04/25/2004 - 05/01/2004
05/02/2004 - 05/08/2004
05/09/2004 - 05/15/2004
05/16/2004 - 05/22/2004
05/23/2004 - 05/29/2004
05/30/2004 - 06/05/2004
06/06/2004 - 06/12/2004
06/13/2004 - 06/19/2004
06/20/2004 - 06/26/2004
06/27/2004 - 07/03/2004
07/04/2004 - 07/10/2004
07/11/2004 - 07/17/2004
07/18/2004 - 07/24/2004
07/25/2004 - 07/31/2004
08/01/2004 - 08/07/2004
08/08/2004 - 08/14/2004
08/15/2004 - 08/21/2004
08/22/2004 - 08/28/2004
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