SPX boasts an exceptionally diverse exhibitor and guest list this year, featuring one of the long time top cartoonist working at The New Yorker, a vanguard editor/creator in Underground Comix, as well as a Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist and animator.
I'll be wandering around SPX on Sunday (can't make Saturday this year) with no official duties except seeing as much cool comics as possible. DC Comics blogger Mike Rhode has interviews with artists attending SPX including Alexis Farjado and Keith Knight (psst – I just reviewed his most recent collection).
The weekend after next is Intervention — I hope to be there too but haven't 100% firmed up my plans.
Zahra's Paradise has been serialized on the web since February 10, 2010. The book will be available in mid-September. This is a powerful, moving book that is a fantastic, gripping read. It is also an important book and deserves wide attention.
By now I'm sure you've seen announcements of the new WACOM INKLING product — sure does look cool doesn't it?
The Last Council, the fourth book of the Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi is truly its Empire Strikes Back moment. The tone is much darker, things go badly for our heroes and a fairly dramatic reveal occurs that changes and broadens the scope of the saga. The first three Amulet books built to bigger and challenges and larger triumphs and so it is a fairly significant shift for the fourth book to dramatically deepen the challenge and leave Emily and her fellow heroes with even bigger odds to overcome than they imagined at the start of the series.
When I think of Keith Knight, I think of The K Chronicles, a multi-panel weekly look at culture and politics which ran forever in Salon before that website foolishly abandoned several series it had long featured. But he's been creating the single panel comic (Th)ink for just about as long. I reviewed (Th)ink way back in 2004 (although sadly all of the links to individual comics I embedded in that review no longer work). (He's also the creator of The Knight Life which is syndicated in newspapers.) He has a new collection of (Th)ink out called Too Small To Fail.
I've gotten to know Doug TenNapel's work through his graphic novels for kids, including his most recent Bad Island. It's fair to say I have become a fan of his work. This year he also serialized his first webcomic, Ratfist, which will be collected in a print edition to be published by Image this December. Clocking in at 150 pages, Ratfist shares a lot with his all ages work, but in other regards is completely different.
It's about the adventures of a superhero of sorts named Ratfist, although we are introducted to him as he is about to retire (or at least say goodbye to his partner, a rat) in order to propose to his girlfriend Gina. Since we don't get to see his actual adventures beforehand, I'm not entirely sure he's not just a deluded guy who liked wearing a costume and has a pet rat.
There's much less coherent world-building going on in this story than what I've come to expect from TenNapel — it has much more of a, "yeah, let's throw that in too!" feel to its disparate elements which range from angels to aliens (tiki-aliens) to time travel to science fiction. It looks like TenNapel's having fun with the comic, but for me it doesn't really hang together as a convincing world. Part of the problem to me was the introduction of TenNapel himself as a character which doesn't seem to serve any real purpose other than to emphasize the fictional nature of the story we're reading.
I posted a review of Doug TenNapel's Bad Island today. I have a review of Keith Knight's latest (Th)ink collection scheduled for publication this Thursday — Rob Clough at TCJ just dropped his review of the book today.
BORG OUT: I saw a new webcomic collective site pop up — Open Fire Comics features The End; Sweet and Sour Grapes; UNDERLING; and Walking the Lethe.
INTERVIEW: Tangents has an interview with J.T. of the slice-of-life comic Between Failures.
EVERYONE WAS SUPER ART FIGHTIN': So I missed the big SUPER ART FIGHT XXXIXL this month in Baltimahh but there'll be lots of sharpie-fu next month in the DC Metro area. First, Super Art Fight will be the post-Ignatz Award Ceremony entertainment at this year's SPX and second, at Intervention, a full-fledged round of bouts.
WEBCOMIC TEEVEE: Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz are the new Heidi and Spencer. Just kidding but they just posted the second episode of their reality teevee show.
Business Time: Zach SMBC Weiner posted a number of great tips for readers and fans titled "On the Proper Care and Feeding of Artists."
HYPIN' THE HYPE
It was just a year ago that we reviewed Doug TenNapel's graphic novel Ghostopolis which was a clever, adventure in a purgatory-like world of the dead. This year TenNapel has a new graphic novel available this month — Bad Island — which is an inventive, exciting and moving adventure. It's much more science-fiction and action-adventure in tone than Ghostopolis which had sort of a noir detective feel to it.
Maybe I'll just stick with the weekly uodate schedule for awhile. ComixTalk is seriously in need of a reboot to the ass but I don't have the right concept to dive in and rework the innards yet.
MILESTONE: First off let me note a milestone I somehow overlooked — Gina Biggs wrote last week letting me know that the all female creator erotic comics anthology website Filthy Figments (NSFW) is celebrating its one year anniversary and has posted over 1000 pages.
ORIGINAL WEBCOMICKER: I had no idea Ryan Smith had a new webcomic. I knew Smith from his work on Funny Farm — his new project Accursed Dragon is about Coven, "a half-man, half-dragon, who is cursed to reptilianoid form until he does enough good deeds to redeem himself. Since he is naturally sour tempered, he has been at it a while – 122 years…" Sounds like a fun story!
KICKSTART MY ART: Bleeding Cool has a list of a bunch of recent Kickstarter projects you might be interested in supporting.
HYPE: IO9 writes up Terry LaBan's Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard Boiled Shaman, which originally ran as a DC miniseries, but LawBan has resurrected as a webcomic:
Muktuk is a nomadic shaman who travels the snowy reaches of Siberia on his trusty (but none too bright) reindeer, waiting for a good supernatural crime to come along. Finally, a troubled dame walks into his camp and into his life. Her son has fallen to a mystical illness, and only a shaman can set him right. Muktuk suspects he's not getting the whole story, but he agrees to take the case.
MAILBAG
Michael Pohrer writes that today is the launch of his new rebooted The Jungle comic. Pohrer is The National Free Press' Editorial Cartoonist which explains why I don't know who he is (editorial cartoons don't usually do much for me) but to compound it I didn't see any real online presence to speak of… so I guess I'll have to check out his site tomorrow to see what the new project is.
LIVE! IT'S RYAN NORTH TALKING
Comic Alliance asked Ryan North to read one of his Dinosaur Comics and he did:
INTERVIEW: A little late linking to it but Tall Tale Radio interviewed Brad Guigar of Evil, Inc. and Dave Kellett of Sheldon and Drive at the San Diego Comic:
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