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Bone: Rose by Jeff Smith and Charles Vess

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Bone: Rose by Jeff Smith and Charles Vess

Is there any fantasy series in recent memory as beloved and praised as Bone?  Jeff Smith began writing about the Bone cousins in 1991, but it was probably the publication of the books in color versions by Scholastic that truly launched Bone into the pop culture.  It's a great sprawling story with a powerful conclusion.  Bone: Rose is a prequel that fleshes out the story of Gran'ma Ben as a youth (i.e., Rose), a story that weighs heavily on the Bone saga proper.

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The Ragbox

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The Ragbox is a comic written by Dave Kender and drawn by three artists: Mark Hamilton, Braden Lamb, and Matthew Reinke (each artist handling one of the three chapters).  Kender is the founder of the Boston Roundtable group.  This is a short book — the pleasures in reading it are not really for the plot so there will be spoilers ahead. (It's also available as a webcomic here; you can buy the book at the store here.)

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Kickstarter Fundraising Model

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Jamie Tanner, the creator of Eisner-niminated The Aviary, is using Kickstarter to run a fund-raising drive — enough money gets pledged, money gets collected and Tanner does his next graphic novel. (h/t Journalista!) He has over $2000 pledged with a goal of $5000.  

Not new necessarily but interesting that this type of web-facilitated tool is being used for non-webcomic comic projects.  Plus Kickstarter itself looks like a handy way to do this kind of approach.

UPDATE: Don’t know how I missed this but Gordon McAlpin is using Kickstarter to raise funds for a print collection of his webcomic Multiplex.  McAlpin is trying to raise $7500 towards finishing the work necessary to complete the book.

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The Amulet Book Two, The Stonekeeper’s Curse

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Kazu Kibuishi once again takes us back into the world of Amulet in Book Two: The Stonekeeper's Curse which is due out from Scholastic in September 2009.  The Stonekeeper's Curse is a compelling story with tons of actions and opens up in much wider ways the world of the first Amulet book.  It's a thrilling tale, a fantastic piece of comics from Kibuishi and a worthy successor to the first book.

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Great Kids Comic: Knights of the Lunch Table

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The Dragon Players, the second book in Frank Cammuso's Knights of the Lunch Table series is scheduled for release this September.  I got a chance to review a preview copy this month and it's a great sequel to the first book, The Dodgeball Chronicles.  The version I got to read had a great color cover and a few pages in color (but the rest in black and white).  The released version will be all in color and based on the color I saw, it will certainly be another bang-up job from Scholastic's GRAPHIX imprint. 

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The Deformitory

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Sophia Wiedeman's The Deformitory is a small, black and white, graphic novel that adds just a touch of realism to its magical realism style.  The comic was also her masters thesis for her MFA in Illustration from The School of Visual Arts.  Last year, Wiedeman won a Xeric Foundation grant which she used for publication of The Deformitory.  Diamond will feature it in its August Previews issue and it will be available in comic shops this fall.

It is a very interesting work, a thoughtful literary comic that I read several times, each time finding new angles to think about.  It's hard not to give away the entire plot in discussing the work, but I am going to try.  So a partial "spoiler" warning perhaps…

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The Once and Future Cartoonist: An Interview with Caleb Sevcik

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Caleb Sevcik is a fun artist with a wicked sense of humor and a really energetic style.  I first encountered Sevcik while reading Zap Jones, which was a funny steampunk western back in the days of Keenspace.

He's working on a new comic he's planning to debut next month — I'm looking forward to Caleb' Sevcik's new project and you should be too!  Read on for our recent interview:

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