Review: Idiots’ Books, by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

Idiots’ Books is comprised of Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, and husband and wife creative team who produce “odd, commercially non-viable illustrated books” which they sell primarily through subscription service, while also taking their books to the occasional comics convention.  I first encountered them at MoCCA a few years ago, a con they can pretty reliably be found at—it was my wife who discovered them, and upon finding me insisted that I visit their table, as she was certain their work would delight me; she was correct.

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Review: Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, by Leanne Shapton

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

Photography by Jason Fulford, Kristin Sjaarda, Leanne Shapton, Michael Schmelling, and Derek Shapton.

What is the value of a memory?  What is the value of a single moment shared between two people?  Does the worth of an affectionate gesture outweigh the cost of a petty unkindness?  When does the price of love become too high?  These are the central questions of Leanne Shapton’s inventive second book, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, a book in which each moment in the affair of two lovers comes with a price-tag clearly affixed.

Important Artifacts takes the form of an auction catalogue, the shared and individual possessions Lenore Doolan and Hal Morris splayed out, photographed, organized, and appraised with an unsentimental eye; we are to witness the posthumous dissolution of Love’s estate.  Is the first known snapshot of the couple, taken at a Halloween party in 2002 worth $25 – $30?  Is Doolan’s hand-drawn Valentine’s Day dinner menu worth $50 – 60?  To whom?

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Seeking Solace at the Symmetry Shop (An Appreciation of Ben Katchor)

BMoore Leave a Comment

Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District
Pantheon Books, 2000

The Jew of New York
Pantheon Books, 1998

The central joke in "The Beauty Supply District" is neatly summed up by this gem from Carol Lay‘s old Frequently Asked Questions page:

Q: Where do you get your ideas?
A: I buy them in enormous rolls from Hammacher Schlemmer.

The Beauty Supply District—another picturesque corner of Ben Katchor's New York-like city—is a little warren of shops where art and design ideas are sold over the counter. Towering geniuses of the art world make furtive visits to punch up their paintings, atonal compositions, and what have you. Commercial manufacturers stride in with less trepidation, aiming to put a new gloss on their line of olive products.

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One Page from Freewheel, by Liz Baillie

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

I’ve been very much enjoying Liz Baillie’s Freewheel, a sort of Alice’s Adventures in Hobo-Wonderland, about a runaway foster child named Jamie on a quest to find her missing older brother, Jack.  At the moment, Jamie is lost in a series of tunnels, which can only be traversed by following a series of arcane rules that no one has taken the time to explain to her.  As a result, she is now at the mercy of Wrigley and Chewbie, a pair of odd, but seemingly well-meaning tunnel guides, who insist that Jamie must be blindfolded (more seemingly-arbitrary rules) if they are to help her find the next gate along her way.

Here’s a page from the blindfold sequence:

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Otakon 2010 Part 2

CreateAComic Leave a Comment

In addition to having a lot of webcomic creators in the artist alley, Otakon 2010 had a number of webcomic-related events. While Otakon doesn't formally invite webcomic people as guests, it does let us be panelists and workshop leaders and large group of attendees (almost 30,000 this year!) makes it a great place. This part covers two of the webcomic events held that weekend: Iron Artist by Jessi Bavolack and Happy Hyper Hentai Drawing Party by some of the girls from FilthyFigments.com.

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Advice for Writers: Write What You Know (Because Learning Something New Would be TERRIBLE.)

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

“Write What You Know” is probably the most common advice writers receive, so much so that it is accepted wisdom; and yet this is quite possibly the worst advice ever given to a writer.  Here is what I understand this advice to mean: writers should be lazy and ignorant, and we should never, ever challenge ourselves to try to understand people who aren’t ourselves.

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Advice for Writers: Write Every Day. Or Don’t. Either Way, Really.

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

One of the standard bits of advice that gets trotted out for writers, whether in writing workshops, or seminars, or just at author Q&As, in response to the inevitable “what advice would you give a young writer” question is this: write very day.  Set aside a particular block of time each day, during which you will write.  Even if you have no ideas, you will write.  Even if every sentence you type is worse than the last, you will write.  Treat it like it’s your job, because it is, and if you give into letting yourself off the hook because you don’t have an idea one day, you will inevitably do the same the next, and the day after that, and so on, ad infinitum.

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Webcomics in Germany

Max Vaehling Leave a Comment

In my first post, I called webcomics in Germany “a fringe experience”. If that makes it sound like there isn’t much going on out here in terms of webcomics and that we’re a little behind on things, I can assure you – about half of that is exaggerated.

It’s not like we don’t have good and popular webcomics. Quite a lot, actually, including several Internationally-known titles. If you’ve been around in the scene, you might well know Arne Schulenberg’s superhero photo comic Union of Heroes, Sarah Burrini’s semi-(if you don’t count the talking mushroom and the jazz-loving elephant, or maybe, what do I know)autobiographical Life Ain’t no Pony Farm or Sandra and Woo by Powree and Oliver Knörzer (which makes it only half-German, actually – Powree is from Indonesia). Maybe you remember demian5’s ‘Classic’ When I Am King, from way back when Infinite Canvasses were all the rage. (Actually, demian5 is Swiss. But when I say ‘German’, I usually mean the language rather than the nationality. It’s really a small scene as is.)

If you’re looking for new German-language titles, Das Webcomic-Verzeichnis is a good place to start. It lists more than 200 titles, both old and new, cartoon and long-form. You might also want to check web 2.0 platforms like MyComics, toonsUp and Comicstars.
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Science Comics Adapted by Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi from the Writing of Mary Roach

Alexander Danner Leave a Comment

Found via Boing Boing, illustrator Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi has adapted two short sequences from the books of pop-science author Mary Roach.  The newer piece, taken from Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, details the stages of human decomposition, juxtaposed against a trip to a sushi restaraunt.  It's a great way of evoking the unsettling images of human decomposition without actually showing the literal process.

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