Saturday, July 17, 2004

the adventures of bob famous:

back in the day when we first launched artbomb, my good friend neil katz was instrumental in helping us to get the bloody thing built. well, he's since embarked on a new career as a photojournalist and is slumming it in oaxaca and chiapas, mexico, and blogging his experiences on the web. i proudly present both the adventures of bob famous as well as his complete photo gallery. enjoy.


posted by peter!  10:23 PM EST permalink

life during wartime:

neil gaiman fans rejoice. the popular sandman writer returns to vertigo comics this week to assist si spencer in the resurrection of timothy hunter in a new series entitled books of magick: life during wartime...

"New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman plots the initial story arc with British television drama writer Si Spencer, who writes the series with Gaiman continuing as consultant. Dean Ormston (LUCIFER, THE SANDMAN) provides the interior art, while fan favorite Frank Quitely delivers painted covers.

"Timothy Hunter, the British boy destined to become the world's greatest mage and one of VERITGO'S signature characters, returns-older, cooler and more confident-in this compelling new ongoing series."


posted by peter!  10:12 PM EST permalink

from boing boing:



"graphic novels are good for you."

posted by peter!  10:07 PM EST permalink

creators on the loose:
 

Friday, July 16, 2004

all work and no play: no time for the old in-and-out today, but here's a little diddy that's in the new previews.  i've read matt's script for the first issue and it's really solid, but don't tell matt i said so cause his head'll get all big and shit.

 
and that niles guy is pretty good, too.

posted by peter!  7:47 PM EST permalink

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

new review: vic and blood by ellison and corben

"Harlan Ellison tore American sf a new hole in the 1960s and had a riotous time doing it. One of his rowdier achievements during the period were his "Vic And Blood" stories, which rewired the standard post-nuke apocalypse story into something that was, for the first time, emotionally as well as conceptually crushing."

(more from warren ellis)


posted by peter!  1:57 AM EST permalink

chin up, macedonia:

the macedonian perspective on larry gonick's cartoon history of the universe, complete with sample pages, courtesy of reality macedonia...

"It is of special interest for the Macedonian audience that Gonick mentions some elements of Macedonian history without explicit reference to a particular interpretation [of the ethnic and cultural milieu] (Alexander the Great), or in the context of other peoples (Samuil). This [most probably, considering the works cited] results from the lack of successful efforts of the Macedonian historians and archeologists to promote their findings in the scientific circles abroad, so the libraries in the U.S.A. contain only interpretations by Macedonia's southern and eastern neighbors."

best line:

"BTW, Plutarch did the same, minus the humor."


posted by peter!  1:45 AM EST permalink

who knew?

"United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan found time from his busy schedule in Bangkok on Monday to meet the cartoonist Stephan Perray, AKA Stephff.

"Annan is a great collector of cartoon originals that feature him and the United Nations. He told Stephff in his suite at the Oriental Hotel in French that he has a collection of about 100 cartoon originals."

more at the tehran times, of all places.


posted by peter!  1:37 AM EST permalink

alternative choices:

following up yesterday's post, here's a selection of reviews we've run in the past of graphic novels either published or sub-distributed by alternative comics...


posted by peter!  1:17 AM EST permalink

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

alternative comics needs your help:

open letter from jeff mason appealing to readers to pick-up alternative comics from your local retailer.



Dear Comics Fans:

I'm Jeff Mason making a direct appeal to you, our faithful readers, in a time of serious financial difficulty. If you could find a way to buy some of our books listed below, you would greatly help in our time of financial crisis. Please check off the books you want below and then buy these books from your favorite retailer. You can also use the checklist in the back of your copy of Alternative Comics #2 that was given out by your local comic book store on Free Comic Book Day. If your retailer does not stock our comics and books, they can use this form below as a way to order our in-stock titles form any of our distributors.

Alternative Comics is suffering some very dire cash flow problems and I am turning to you for help. In the spring of 2002 our book trade distributor, LPC, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy owing Alternative Comics a lot of money. I had hoped that I could weather the storm by taking money from my savings and by borrowing on credit until receiving the agreed-upon 42% of what LPC owed us. Now over two years later, LPC is still in bankruptcy proceedings and I am completely out of savings and credit.

In the past (prior to LPC) I had ample working capital – I had great credit terms with my various printers. Now (post LPC) I have absolutely no working capital and must pay up front to print every book.

For each publication, I now wait for all of the retailer advance orders to come in to Diamond, then I contract Diamond to assign the payment they'd pay to me to my printer to print the book. This contractual agreement costs money and cuts into our razor thin margin.

Lack of cash on hand has also caused me to have to shrink print runs on some books. This increases the cost per unit of each book, and speeds the looming reprint costs.

I've been increasing my publishing schedule over the last two years, and in hindsight, I expanded too quickly. Alternative Comics is moving forward with a much more reasonable, much more foresighted publishing schedule, with some really amazing projects in the works!

Alternative Comics' cash flow problems have been the only reason for not yet reprinting Bipolar #1 and Humor Can Be Funny as well as having been the only reason a number of books have been arriving late or re-solicited.

I am asking you to please buy Alternative Comics books from your local retailers. In my fanciful imagination, the best result would be for retailers to quickly sell out of all Alternative Comics books in inventory to customers and hurriedly place nice reorders with distributors.

Alternative Comics has no staff other than myself, so I am unable to handle orders directly. I ask that readers buy from your local comic book retailers, and retailers to buy from your favorite distributors.

The single most important variable for our publishing efforts is the number of comics or books advance ordered by retailers. Retailers decide their advance orders of books based on what you, the reader, let them know you want to buy. Currently, we have the following books scheduled for release in September 2004. These books are in all of the distributors' catalogs right now. If you want to get copies of these books, please let your local comic book retailer know!

JUL04 2534, A Few Perfect Hours and Other Stories by Josh Neufeld (Xeric Winner), $12.95
JUL04 2535, Escalator by Brandon Graham, $12.95
JUL04 2537, SLOWPOKE: America Gone Bonkers by Jen Sorensen, $12.95
JUL04 2538, Turtle, turtle by Jed Alexander, $11.95
JUL04 2539, Waterwise by Joel Orff (Featured Item), $14.95

If you can find it in your hearts to help Alternative Comics, I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you,

Jeff Mason
Publisher – Alternative Comics

http://www.indyworld.com/altcomics


posted by peter!  10:38 AM EST permalink

Monday, July 12, 2004

american elf:

james kochalka got some nice ink at the boston globe in advance of the release of his american elf collection coming later this month from top shelf.

"'If life's a silly ride, Kochalka is selling tickets.' So wrote one critic about the Burlington, Vt.-based cartoonist and quirk-rock front man James Kochalka, whose James Kochalka Superstar albums and innumerable graphic novels are, collectively, a study in what philosophers have called 'second naivete,' or self-willed guilelessness. Kochalka's simple, meandering, bittersweet comics -- including Monkey vs. Robot, Quit Your Job, and Fancy Froglin's Sexy Forest -- may not be appropriate for kids. But you might call them kids' literature for grown-ups..."


posted by peter!  3:47 AM EST permalink

indy island:

so, it looks like i'll be at the san diego comics con this year thanks to tim and the gang at cold cut who were gracious and crazy enough to let me stake a tent at their indy island alongside my pal carla speed mcneil (finder), jim ottaviani (suspended in language), chip zdarsky (prison funnies), a. david lewis (mortal coils), kagan mcleod (infinite kung-fu), dan taylor (hero happy hour), steve vincent (devilboy) and joanne ellen mutch (rummblestrips). i'll be donning my "peter siegel" alter ego and will have plenty of copies of killing demons as well as a gaggle of artbomb t-shirts. please stop by and talk shop if you get the chance. kelly sue and (fingers crossed) fraction will be around as well.

i think i'm also on a panel promoting mostly unknown indy comics, so if you've been reading or creating anything good lately that no one knows about, well, at least tell me about it.

more pimpin' to come over the next two weeks. apologies in advance.


posted by peter!  3:24 AM EST permalink

Sunday, July 11, 2004

not funnies:

art comix made the front page of the new york times magazine today...

"You can't pinpoint it exactly, but there was a moment when people more or less stopped reading poetry and turned instead to novels, which just a few generations earlier had been considered entertainment suitable only for idle ladies of uncertain morals. The change had surely taken hold by the heyday of Dickens and Tennyson, which was the last time a poet and a novelist went head to head on the best-seller list. Someday the novel, too, will go into decline -- if it hasn't already -- and will become, like poetry, a genre treasured and created by just a relative few. This won't happen in our lifetime, but it's not too soon to wonder what the next new thing, the new literary form, might be.

"It might be comic books. Seriously. Comic books are what novels used to be -- an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal -- and if the highbrows are right, they're a form perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit. Comics are also enjoying a renaissance and a newfound respectability right now..."


posted by peter!  10:03 PM EST permalink

jersey fresh:

you can take the kid out of jersey, but you can't take the jersey out of the kid. a new t-shirt from brian wood celebrating my accursed homeland:



(you might have to scroll down, etc.)
posted by peter!  9:57 PM EST permalink

cartunnel:

jason little's been busy putting together an intriguing comix gallery that's running until august 7th over at the flux factory, a nonprofit arts space in long island city, ny. they've put up an online version over at the fluxfactory website.

"The project: create a maze of intersecting paths in the Flux Factory gallery space over which comic book characters will interact and develop. Visitors are invited to walk through the maze and experience a Choose Your Own Adventure story, with side-plots, dead-ends, and parallel narrative universes, created in a collaborative atmosphere. Depending on which directions visitors choose at various junctures along the way, the course of the story will be altered accordingly. A visitor would be able to walk through the maze several times and see different versions and permutations of the narrative each time they do. The Comix Fluxture takes comic art and illustration seriously as a vibrant contemporary art form, but not by refusing to have fun."


posted by peter!  9:47 PM EST permalink

the escapist 2966:

here's a page from the fourth issue of michael chabon's the escapist that should be coming out later this year from dark horse, courtesy of writer stuart moore and artist steve conley. click on the pic for the full page.


posted by peter!  9:41 PM EST permalink

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