Secret Science Alliance
ComixTalk for Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 16, 2010 - 03:02
We had the Son of Snowpocalypse in Washington DC yesterday. Not all that exciting actually. Also finally saw AVATAR in 3D on Sunday night. (Ain't Mrs X cool to take me to that for Valentines Day?!) Reviews were dead-on; awesome world-building and special effects to carry it off, story was Dances With Wolves With Four Eyes and Gil Slits. All in all, a great movie experience.
AWARDS: Tom Spurgeon has a list of the nominees for this year's Glyph awards.
MILESTONES: Congrats to Brad Guigar on 10 years of comicking! Brad has had a heck of a decade pioneering this thing we call webcomics and I hope there's lots more to come. In his blog post there's a BIG hint that a full collection of his first strip, Greystone Inn, will be coming to print.
Also docking in close to 10 years is the Flight anthology series. Kazu Kibuishi announces that Flight 8 will be the last edition of that very successful project.
INTERVIEWS: Growly Beast has an interview with Tom Dell'Aringa of Marooned and The Internet Review of Science Fiction has a fairly indepth interview with Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary. UPDATE: Graphic NYC has an interview with Raina Telgemeier, who's most recent work is the graphic novel Smile.
JUSTIFY VARIOUS PEOPLE'S HYPE:
- Back on January 31st, Warren Ellis had one of his hype your webcomics threads at WhiteChapel that's now got an overflowing bounty of potential links for your perusal.
- Scott McCloud links to an interesting comic-like project from a photograher - the "comic" is called A Garden Not Lost to Us.
- I noticed that you can buy the originals from Christopher Baldwin's new webcomic Space Trawler. Beautiful stuff!
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS: Kids book author/illustrator Mo Willems takes a crack at Hilary Price's Rhymes With Oranges this week. Also details on Hilary's trip to Cuba with Jeannie Schulz and other cartoonists including Alexis Fajardo. Haven't talked with Alexis in years - maybe I better catch up with him! :) (h/t Daily Cartoonist)
SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE ACTIVATE! The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook by Eleanor Davis won this year's CYBIL award for the graphic novel category. The CYBILs are the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards. And TCJ posted a four part interview with Eleanor, husband Drew Weing and the rest of the creative crew from the Secret Science Alliance book. Here's part one (with links to part 1 & 2 and part 3 & 4):
SPX Updates from Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 29, 2009 - 09:25
I picked up the Secret Science Alliance book from Eleanor Davis at SPX this year. I got halfway through it before the older X girl took it away. She's finished and now the younger X girl took it to school with her today. Both are really excited about the book. This seems like a great book for boys and girls of a reading age (not sure how old the audience for it would be, although I found it very clever and the artwork, including the composition and layout, is equally as clever as the writing). This project also has a bunch of great people behind it. Eleanor Davis wrote and drew it; Drew Weing inked it and Bryant Paul Johnson (Teaching Baby Paranoia) lettered it -- that's like a webcomics supergroup right there. And Joey Weiser and Michele Chidester colored it (and it's really nicely done).
In Drew Weing news, I chatted with him and Eleanor while buying the book -- Drew has finished plotting and thumbnailing his amazing Set To Sea comic (which has wonderful E.C. Segar influences all over it) which means it WILL BE FINISHED! In fact, in finishing the rough of it Drew said he decided he needed to make small changes here and there throughout which is why he is re-publishing it online. Everyone should give this a read; I'm already looking forward to the whole thing (both on the web and the book to be).
I also saw Eleanor on the "Debut Cartoonists" panel at SPX where she was joined by Ken Dahl (Monsters), Hans Rickheit (The Squirrel Machine), and Zak Sally (Like A Dog). She did very well - it's not always easy to talk about your own motivations and creative process but it was interesting to hear that she has a part time job working on organic farms. Not a quote but basically she explained that she didn't want to do comics all of the time and that she enjoyed life better with a balance between comics and other activities (which was in contrast to Dahl who took the less surprisingly line that making it was quitting your day job).
