• Review: "Ganges #4 is the Godfather Part II of comics about insomnia: the rare sequel that tops the already excellent original.... Here he returns to the sleeplessness well, but this time around Glenn’s mental avatar remains relatively stationary (though Glenn himself does plenty of wandering around the Ganges family manse), allowing Huizenga to instead burrow down deep into some of the most unpleasant sensations a bored and overtired brain is able to conjure. Folks, he does this so well.... The... comic maintains [a] dizzying blend of writing and drawing power, with alarmingly familiar sensations reproduced, and stop-and-marvel visual effects created, on nearly every page." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal
• Review: "When did The Comics Journal get so freakin' fat? Weighing in at one and a half pounds, this 624 page sucker features more of what you love (or hate) about comics criticism: long, detailed interviews and reviews that will take you days to read." – Chris Auman, Reglar Wiglar
• Review: "Dave McKean’s art never fails to amaze me... At one point, as she goes deeper and deeper into the film, the woman encounters a fourteen-breasted being, and they have sex. McKean mixes images of real fruit with his drawings and color to create sexual images that are as fresh as they are startling. I’ll never look at a fig, a pear, or a red tomatillo the same way again. ...I think [Celluloid] would make a good paper anniversary gift." – Gene Ambaum, The Unshelved Book Club
• Review: "In Ghost World, Daniel Clowes doesn’t romanticize the teenage experience or show teenage girls as sweet and idealistic. His portrayal is raw, cynical, and honest, often hitting the nail on the head.... It’s an excellent portrayal of alienation, especially teenage alienation. Even when Enid and Rebecca aren’t being nice, they’re still understandable. This graphic novel is very funny, but it’s also very sad, and sometimes it’s both at the same time.... Though it’s only 80 pages long, this graphic novel still manages to leave a deep impression." – Danica Davidson, Graphic Novel Reporter
• Commentary: At Robot 6, Sean T. Collins concludes his impromptu week-long focus on Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 by encouraging new readers not to be intimidated by the cumulative volume of the series: "The point is that both Jaime and Gilbert have produced massive, high-quality bodies of work, with multiple, affordable collections, each of which contains a story or two fit to knock your block off. If you love reading good comics, and chances are good that you do if you’re reading this blog at all, that’s not intimidating — that’s inviting!"
• Feature: At SF Weekly, Alan Scherstuhl provides you with "10 Reasons Why Prince Valiant Bests All 2011's Adventure Heroes" (starting with "He lances giant crocodiles"), saying "Sure, those glossy lips and that pageboy bob makes him look something like ye olde Ramona Quimby, but don't let that fool you. The star of what is arguably the twentieth century's best-drawn newspaper comic strip, Hal Foster's Prince Valiant is all hero, through and through, for his age and ours. The first four volumes of Fantagraphics' collected Prince Valiant reveal young Foster's creation as both the sum total of the heroic ideals that preceded his debut in 1937 as well as a source of serious inspiration for all the heroes that have followed him, in all media formats, in the decades since."
• Review: "War and disorder [in The Armed Garden and Other Stories] from the creator of the much-admired Epileptic and, more recently, Black Paths, visually styled to each story’s setting. The first was my favourite to look at: a forest of spears, a torrent of arrows and a swirling sandstorm of bleached bones and skulls against a velvety, light mushroom brown — a tremendous sense of space.... So there you have it: religion, jealousy, conflict and a great deal of transmogrification. Oh yes, death; a great deal of death too." – Stephen L. Holland, Page 45
• Review: "It helps if you can illustrate your fever dreams as well as Sala can — lavishly watercolored in brown, saturated orange and yellow, punctuated by bright blue and (especially later) red, [The Hidden] is beautiful to look at, and as usual, he gives us memorable grotesques and lovely girls in equal measure. Those who are fans of the artist’s previous work will find more of what they like here, and will be gratified by the deviation from his usual norm. Those who are new to his efforts will be entertained, I think, by the story, which is a bit of a page-turner, and will like his beautifully colored art. His best since he wrapped up Evil Eye a few years ago." – Johnny Bacardi, Popdose
• Review: "Dense, claustrophobic, intense and trenchantly funny, the self-contained [Nuts] strips ranged from satire to slapstick to agonising irony, linking up over the years to form a fascinating catalogue of growing older in the USA: a fearfully faithful alternate view of childhood and most importantly, of how we adults choose to recall those distant days." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!
• Plug: Delivery of an advance copy of Kevin Huizenga's Ganges #4 prompts Tom Spurgeon to declare "I Love You, Comics" at The Comics Reporter
• Analysis:Robot 6's Matt Seneca performs a close analysis of a page from Al Columbia's Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days: "The genius of the page above is almost too simple: in four panels that follow the minimalist logic of the gag-strip format, it speaks to both the artificial nature of drawings and to the nature of sequence as something that breaks comics apart as much as pieces them together."
• Review: "We cannot commend Love & Rockets to you highly enough... 'Return for Me' will not disappoint..., and I was left speechless for hours.... There’s far more of Maggie in parts three, four and five of 'The Love Bunglers,' and I could begin almost any review of a Jaime Hernandez story with my 'Poor Maggie' refrain. Still, poor Maggie… Then there’s the delightfully mannered dance and duel from Gilbert Hernandez of 'And Then Reality Kicks In.' No one does comics like Gilbert. Sometimes it’s as if he’s never read another comic in his life (other than maybe his brothers’) and so invents an unprecedented comicbook performance. Time and again Gilbert turns your expectations right on their heads, especially here in 'King Vampire,' the most unusual fang-fest you could ever imagine!" – Stephen L. Holland, Page 45
• Review: "About [Ganges #2] a lot can be said like 'our whole life is a game,' and this will be true, but more true to say will be that all good things must come to an end, you’ve played, and that's enough. And the moral is simple: not work joins people together, but fun." – Ray Garraty, Endless Falls Up
• 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!
Astute readers know that one of the webcomics we regularly feature in our weekly roundup here (and one of my personal faves) is Amazing Facts... and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch (the latter of whose strips we regretfully skip due to the fact that he is not a member of our roster of published artists, even though they are equally awesome to Kevin's... but I digress). Not one but TWO new minicomic collections of the strip are now available through the Catastrophe Shop: Vol. 4, Brain Dump, and Vol. 5, Factual Healing. Get yours now and get self-factualized!
Our own Jason T. Miles has joined in the efforts to benefit the family of Dylan Williams of Sparkplug Comics by gathering donations of artwork and auctioning them on eBay. Current offerings include Peter Bagge's original cover for Neat Stuff #5 (above) and pieces by our own Eric Reynolds and Jason himself, with an interpretation of a cover of one of Williams's Reporter comics (below). Click each image to go directly to the respective eBay auction page. Upcoming auctions from Jason will include work by a who's-who of Seattle cartoonists, including Max Clotfelter, Jeremy Eaton, Megan Kelso, David Lasky, Marc Palm, Greg Stump and more. Meanwhile, the "Divine Invasion" benefit auctions organized by Floating World's Jason Leivian continue as well, with some great pieces including original pages by Kevin Huizenga (bottom). Bid early, bid often.
![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=)
