• Review: Poopsheet praises Petey & Pussy by John Kerschbaum, noting the "deeply weird cast" of characters, the "unpredictable plots in which everybody winds up humiliated and covered in one horrible substance or other, which is just what they all deserve. All this is, of course, very, very funny. John is a ninja of comedy timing," and a story moment that "makes you happy to read comics."
• Reviews: Andrew Wheeler rounds up a lot of books, including Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin ("Not just one of the best books of comics to come out last year, not even one of the best books to come out in 2008, but an excellent, essential, carefully-designed work of real historical importance and vital art... a great monument to one of the best cartoonists of the 20th century"; Petey & Pussy by John Kerschbaum ("Another one of those books that makes me laugh out loud and then feel guilty about it; this is probably offensive to many people, disgusting to more, but uncomfortably funny for nearly all of us... The stories are drawn in a tight, clean style, and are full of things I don't want to describe on the open Internet. I laughed a lot; I'll admit that"); Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville by Ted Stearn ("...like Mark Beyer's Amy + Jordan, only much better drawn and with a coherent story"); The Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees by Tony Millionaire ("grotesquely gorgeous art"); and The Last Musketeer by Jason ("a wry and very entertaining story")
• Review: Stripper's Guide on Jerry Dumas & Mort Walker's Sam's Strip: "...one of the most delightful and intellectually daring strips that ever appeared in newspapers... And Fantagraphics has done it up in a perfect package. The reproduction quality is top-notch, and they've given us a superb bonus -- a section of annotations by Jerry Dumas and Brian Walker... if you are a comic strip fan and you don't have this book on your shelf then there is something really wrong with you. Seriously. Go buy the book."
• List: Ben Towle names some favorites from 2008 including Most Outrageous by Bob Levin ("...fascinating... a fantastic book..."); Petey & Pussy by John Kerschbaum ("What more can I say? This book’s #%&*in’ hilarious. Oh, I guess this: it’s also beautifully drawn."); and Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville by Ted Stearn ("beautiful")
I'm putting together the 15th issue of MOME (Summer 2009) right now and it features the final three chapters of Tim Hensley's spectacular "Wally Gropius, Teen Millionaire" which has appeared in MOME since our fifth issue (Fall 2006). I can't even tell you how proud I am to have published this comic. Hensley is such a singular talent. He's so good I'm almost at a loss to explain why. There's something transcendent about it. It looks like old 1950s teenage humor comics, specifically Mort Walker's proto-Beetle Bailey strip, Spider, as Adam Grano recently pointed out to me while laying out the upcoming Walker interview in The Comics Journal.
Here's a page from Wally:
I find his work beautiful to look at. It's as attractive as comics get for me. But his work is so much more than that. It's a satire of teen comics and celebrityhood and modern culture, but it's also great Art. His dialogue is witty, lyrical, sampled, dada, and elliptical. It's all in the service of a very bizarre story, a mystery of sorts. There's sex, violence, rock and roll, intrigue, betrayal -- but it's all told in Hensley's truly inimitable style. I've read each chapter many times and will be sorry to not have more coming in anymore. But not to worry, Tim's already hard at work on the Wally Gropious collection, which won't be out for over a year but will be well worth the wait!
And here's a sneak peak at the cover for MOME 15, featuring the end of Wally Gropius. This is an early treatment by Adam Grano, with art by Andrice Arp:
• Interview: du9 talks Bottomless Belly Button and Bodyworld with Dash Shaw; Belgian site XeroXed reprints the interview (in French) with some additional information
• Social networking: If you're on the Twitter, you can follow cartoonists Paul Hornschemeier and Mack White; meanwhile, we just got our 1,000th Twitter follower, who appears to be a fictional albatross named Fredrik Lotsie (and you could be our 1,014th)
Some Fanta artist previews for the Post-It Show 3 at GR2.
December 13, 2008 - January 14, 2009 Reception: Saturday, December 13, 6:30 -10:00
Curated by artists Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson and Giant Robot, the exhibition is slated to feature nearly 2,000 works by over 95 noted contributors each starting at only $20. These pieces will be on standard-sized 3 x 3 Post-It notes. (Larger sizes of 4 x 4 and 6x 6 will also be available.)
Tim Hensley:
Steven Weissman:
Johnny Ryan:
(*Speaking of Mark Todd -- he has a show at La Luz in LA coming January 2nd. Looks to include more of his beautiful Marvel Comics homages.)
The latest issue of the 2008 Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz Award-nominee features the first chapter (of three) of an all-new graphic novel by superstar Freak Brothers creator Gilbert Shelton! Thomas Ott (The Number), Josh Simmons (House), David Greenberger (Duplex Planet) and rising minicomics star Laura Park all make their MOME debuts. Bottomless Belly Button creator Dash Shaw delivers an all-new story, "Satellite CMYK", and creates this issue's covers. Also featured: Tim Hensley, Kurt Wolfgang, Nate Neal, Sara Edward-Corbett and Derek Van Gieson.
Mike Baehr, Janice Headley and I are headed down Friday for this weekend's Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, and we will be bringing along about 150 comics and books for you to browse and get signed all weekend long by our amazing line-up of attending authors:
Saturday:
11AM Johnny Ryan 12PM Kevin Huizenga & Bob Levin 1PM John Pham & Johnny Ryan 2PM Daniel Clowes & Ted Stearn 3PM Jaime Hernandez & Megan Kelso 4PM Jaime Hernandez & Dame Darcy 5PM From MOME: Jonathan Bennett & Tim Hensley
Sunday:
11AM Megan Kelso & Kevin Huizenga 12PM Jaime Hernandez & John Pham 1PM Daniel Clowes & Ted Stearn 2PM Dame Darcy 3PM Dame Darcy 4PM Jaime Hernandez & Johnny Ryan
Meanwhile, Jordan Crane, Esther Pearl Watson, Chris Ware (yes, Chris Ware!), and others will also be appearing at the show. How can you miss it? It runs 11 to 7 Saturday and 11 to 6 Sunday.
Tim Hensley apparently posted this over at Blog Flume last month but it just yesterday showed up my RSS reader. I'm in awe of the sketchbook pages he's been posting over there, too.
