• List:Flavorwire's Emily Temple names Daniel Clowes's Ghost World one of "10 Disturbingly Brilliant Graphic Novels" (a list which includes many of the usual suspects along with some off-the-beaten-path selections): "This novel is a cult classic for a reason (and no, the reason is not Scarlett Johansson): its frank depiction of teenage life, especially in boring, suburban towns, and the awkwardness of growing up garnered an instant following, along with its cynical, hilarious protagonists. It is intensely strange, and yet somehow universal in its strangeness — because who doesn’t think their teen years were completely weird? We know ours were."
• Review: "Trondheim (as depicted by Trondheim) is a mass of neuroses and tics. He's full of self-doubt and more than a little bit of anger. But what sets him apart from oh-so-many other autographical cartoonists is that he's also devoted to his life and his art. You might say that [Approximate Continuum Comics] is a book about beating yourself up in service of self-exploration, which itself is in service of creating great stories." – John R. Platt, Graphic Novel Reporter
• Review: "[Congress of the Animals] is wordless and flows from scene to scene with dream logic, so it’s a quick read. Woodring’s inking is so fabulous that I’ve already reread it, and opened it to specific pages to stare at the varying weights he gives his lines. I particularly liked the textures of the wood walls in the background of the factory where Frank works and how they make the machines stand out from the background." – Gene Ambaum, The Unshelved Book Club
Fantagraphics resident genius Jim Woodring outdoes himself in the new annual edition of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror. Li'l Bart discovers a shopworn copy of "Harvest of Fear" — an E.C. knockoff in the tradition of Four Color Fear — at a yard sale and all hell breaks loose. Woodring works within the Simpsons canon while cleverly incorporating his own idiosyncratic sensibilities. In the story, our mischievous protagonist sets out to solve the mystery of the mid-century comic book and finds the last page is the missing piece. Spooky.
You'll wanna hail down one of these wonderful new tees from Jim Woodring, designed for our friends at the non-profit literary organization, Rain Taxi!
I don't even know where to start when it comes to all the great stuff Rain Taxi does for literature. You may already be familiar with their award-winning quarterly-publication Rain Taxi: Review of Books, which is frickin' free all across the nation. But they also power tons of great events, like the annual Twin Cities Book Festival!
So, not only are you sportin' some fine Pushpaw action across your chest, but you're also supporting an awesome organization!
And it looks like they still have some of the Joe Sacco-designed tee in stock, but only in size small!
• Tim Lane's poster for the St. Louis International Film Festival (along with its conceptual inspiration)
• Steven Weissman and Jordan Crane are putting together an elementary school haunted house for some LUCKY KIDS and here's Steven's flyer for it with Jordan's logo for the school (from Steven via email); also from Steven, his latest "I, Anonymous" spot and Stincker sketchin'
• A fun Dave Cooper gig poster for his friend's band (via Facebook)
We've got a gorilla-sized weekend coming up at APE: the Alternative Press Expo in beautiful San Francisco, CA! Come see us on Saturday, October 1st and Sunday, October 2nd at the Concourse Exhibition Center, and be among the first to get your mitts on these hot numbers:
You can find us in our usual spot at tables 112-115. (Right by our good friends Jim Blanchard and J.R. Williams at table 116!)
[ Please note: this is a chopped-up map, just to give you an idea where you can find us! The Concourse Exhibition Center is too wide to fit on the FLOG, so check out a PDF map here. ]
And panels! Boy, do we have panels!
Saturday, October 1st
2:00 PM // The Comix Claptrap . . . LIVE! Co-hosts Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham record an episode of their enlightening, riotous, and controversial podcast, The Comix Claptrap LIVE at APE! For four seasons, Rina and Thien have interviewed comics artists in the indie comics scene about their work, creative processes, and experiences in the industry. Each show has included New Comics Wednesday beat reportage from fellow cartoonist Josh Frankel, and new favorite segment, The Comix Cranktrap, where they crank-call a well-known cartoonist listed in their Rolodex. Also featured on the panel: Mike Dawson, Scott Campbell, Levon Jihanian, and Esther Pearl Watson. This panel promises to be total mayhem!
3:00 PM // A Discussion with Daniel Clowes and Adrian Tomine Critically acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling cartoonists -- and APE special guests -- Daniel Clowes (The Death-Ray, Ghost World, Wilson) and Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve, Shortcomings) are both professional peers and friends, having met over a decade ago when both lived in the East Bay. TheComicsJournal.com editor and PictureBox publisher Dan Nadel talks to the two artists about their work, their friendship, and the comics medium.
4:00 PM // Spotlight on Shannon Wheeler From stapling 21,000 minicomics, to shooting comic books with a .22, to creating operas, to publishing cartoons with The New Yorker, APE special guest Shannon Wheeler must be drinking too much coffee, man. Recently, his collection of rejected cartoons I Thought You Would Be Funnier won the Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication. Wheeler and his trusty sidekick BOOM! Studios marketing director Chip Mosher talk about the best ammunition to use on a comic, Japanese bootleg shirts, and drawing dead granddads in fishnet stockings with swastika panties. Shannon Wheeler once also created Too Much Coffee Man, so they'll probably talk about that, too.
6:00 PM // Drawing Inspiration: The Secrets of Comics Creativity Ever wonder where your favorite author or artist gets his or her inspiration? Now you can find out as moderator Charles Brownstein (executive director, CBLDF) joins APE special guests Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant!), Craig Thompson (Habibi), Matthew Thurber (1-800 MICE), and Shannon Wheeler (Oil and Water), plus Tom Neely (The Wolf) for an in-depth discussion of what gets their creative juices flowing and the secrets of what inspires them.
Sunday, October 2nd
12:00 PM // Indie Cartoonist Survival Guide: Part 3 Cartoonist Keith Knight moderates this panel (in its third appearance at APE), featuring a lineup of successful independent creators who share their stories, methods, techniques, trials, and tribulations concerning making a living as a so-called Indie Cartoonist. Shannon Wheeler (I Thought You Would Be Funnier), Dan Cooney (Dan Cooney Art), Andy Ristaino (Adventure Time), and Rebecca Sugar (Pug Davis) all chime in.
The great Eric Reynolds will be manning the table, so come by and come buy! We'll see you at APE!
• Review: "David B.'s newest, The Armed Garden and Other Stories, finds the creator turning his gifts to the world of historical legend. The subject may be different but the artist's mysterious and melancholy style saturates every panel; what's more, the three graphic novellas collected in The Armed Garden provide him with plenty of opportunities to draw the epic battle scenes he so loves.... The Armed Garden and Other Stories is the witty, finely executed work of an artist uniquely capable of capturing both the fervid ecstasy of belief and the dull, heartsick ache left behind once it cools." – Glen Weldon, NPR.org
• Review: "In Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, Adult Swim contributor and comics creator Michael Kupperman (Snake 'n' Bacon) reworks [Hal] Holbrook's Twain as a Zelig-like immortal cruising through a century of life after his 1910 death.... Some of the tales are hilarious koans of absurdist comedy — Twain as the unknown fourth astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission is fabulous. Although it sometimes has the feel of a Saturday Night Live skit stretched into a feature film — perfect in small doses but unsustainable over a longer haul — the premise is too good to abandon." –Andy Lewis, The Hollywood Reporter (reviewing the book in tandem with Holbrook's memoir Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain)
• Review: "Kupperman is a comedic genius. Filled with deliberately odd syntax, wizards, snarky dialog, vampires, outer space adventures, car UFO chasing, and nearly every significant event of the past one hundred years Mark Twain’sAutobiography [1910-2010] is easily the funniest thing that I have read in a very, very long time. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever read anything funnier. Nearly every page had me rolling. It wasn’t just a chuckle or even a hearty guffaw, either. It was maniacal hysterical, snorting, crying, temporarily not breathing, and contorting my body into uncomfortable shapes type of laughing. It’s that goddamn funny. So funny, in fact, that I would be entirely satisfied if Kupperman went ahead and decided to write the biographies of everyone else, ever." – Zack Kruse, A Little Nonsense
• Review: "Love And Rockets: New Stories Vol. 4 contains the conclusion to the recent run of 'The Love Bunglers' stories — again with a heartbreaking digression into the past.... This is incandescent work. At this point, Jaime Hernandez draws comics better than maybe anyone's ever drawn comics. The story is beautifully paced, there are at least two stop and stare sequences in there..., the characters are warm and human and funny, one of the subplots addresses with significant insight and potency Jaime's long-time fascination with the power of memory in providing life with meaning and the ending made me choke up both as a moment with resonance across decades of comics but also for the thematic twist it provides on something we've seen in the last few appearances of Jaime's best character... I don't know that it's something you can pick up out of the blue, but my God, what a remarkable comic. I'm so grateful to have read it." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
• Review: "Congress of the Animals might be my least favorite Woodring book, but it’s still overall strong and compelling. I love the fact that Woodring has made a huge, fundamental change to the world of Frank, and that in doing so it still feels like an old familiar friend. I’m not sure just anyone could have pulled this off so late in the game, but with Woodring it feels like a natural extension of everything we’ve seen up until now. There’s no other comics quite like Woodring’s out there, and I’m forever thankful that we get these amazing, disturbing, wonderful creations from him. After all, a 'merely good' comic from Woodring is still better than most other comics out there." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics
• Interview: If you read one interview with Johnny Ryan, make it Jesse Pearson's epic, revealing talk with Johnny at The Comics Journal: "When I was first doing book one of Prison Pit, I felt like even though it was about monster men and fighting and all that shit, it was revealing more about myself than any of my earlier works. I removed a lot of that aggressive humor that was working as my armor."
• Interview:Panel Bound's Matthew Manarino talks to Freeway creator Mark Kalesniko: "I like doing comics, as you saw in Freeway, I like doing some comics with detail, I like to go in and show people a world and paint it and draw it. With Freeway I can take you to downtown Los Angeles and really give you a tour.... With Freeway and even Mail Order Bride I wanted to give you something where it’s not a crude drawing but give you a layout so you really feel like you're there. There is also a joy with that kind of work were you can come back to it over and over again and always find something new." (Mark's advice for submitting work to publishers is great, by the way.)
• Feature: In "Graphic Medicine" at Comics Forum, M.K. Czerwiek (RN) spotlights Joyce Farmer's Special Exits in an article on comics dealing with hospice care issues
Our own Ian Burns has joined me in the exclusive "Theme Sketchbook of Frank Oz Puppet Characters Club" with his own super-impressive book of Animal from The Muppet Show (my personal second-favorite member of The Electric Mayhem, after Zoot), which is giving my Yoda collection a serious run for its money. Here are some Fantagraphics-relevant entries as posted by Ian on the Versus the Moon blog (where he posts 2 new ones a week, so keep checking back):
We're still reeling from the amazing weekend Fantagraphics had at the 2011 Small Press Expo earlier this month! Kim's awesome wife has some photos she's gonna share with us later, but in the meantime, here's some photos, thanks to our friends at the SPX Facebook page!
Jim Woodring signs a copy of the fancy brand-new edition of The Frank Book. (You can pre-order a copy here, and get a signed bookplate, while supplies last, by the way!)
Check out even more pics at the SPX Facebook page. And thank you so much to our artists, the organizers of SPX, and everyone who came by our table and bought books!
This weekend kicks off the Foolscap convention, a small conference of fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts in Redmond, WA. And joining them as a "Guest of Honor" is our own Jim Woodring!
You guys, this convention sounds amazing. Not only do you get to hobnob with fellow readers, writers, and artists, but they're kicking it off on Friday with a chocolate reception. Why don't all cons do that?
Join Jim on Saturday from 3:00 to 4:30 PM for the panel "Woodring on Woodring," and then on Sunday from 11:00 to 12:00 pm, he'll be on the panel for "Comics Without Captions," a discussion on wordless graphic novels.
Foolscap runs from Friday, September 16th through Sunday, September 18th at the Redmond Marriott Town Center [7401 164th Avenue NE] in Redmond, Washington.
![Nuts [Pre-Order]](components/com_virtuemart/show_image_in_imgtag.php?filename=9509a6fe9b403dd3364271227134a526.jpg&newxsize=145&newysize=&fileout=)
![The Frank Book [New Hardcover Ed.]](components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/2701b9fd8f1b4ed6183b4b3aae1608f0.jpg)
![The Frank Book [New Hardcover Ed.]](components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/318df9e32728ceba720779ef9956d1c2.jpg)
![Ganges #4 [Aug. 2011]](components/com_virtuemart/show_image_in_imgtag.php?filename=37ecfc90bf250a6d5eaa32b65aff0edc.jpg&newxsize=145&newysize=&fileout=)
