Annie Koyama
Koyama Press rolling out new DeForge, Delporte & Kerlow for 2013
Koyama Press announced four new titles Tuesday that are set to debut this spring: Very Casual and Lose #5 by Michael DeForge, Journal by Julie Delporte and Everything Takes Forever by Victor Kerlow. Keep reading for details …
Exclusive Preview | Michael DeForge’s Lose #5
One of the current stars in the Koyama Press lineup is Canadian artist Michael DeForge. So it’s no surprise that Koyama plans to publish the fifth issue of DeForge’s one-man anthology series Lose in 2013. The issue will feature three self-contained stories: “Living Outdoors” tracks two high school students as they explore a zoo and experiment with hallucinogens; “Muskoka” is the story of a cowboy on the road home to see his family; and “Recent Hires” follows a young author’s descent into the criminal underworld in order to win the affections of a girl.
Annie Koyama was kind enough to send us a two-page preview from the “Living Outdoors” story, which you can see below. I’d also highly recommend checking out a story DeForge recently posted to his blog, First Year Healthy.
Talking Comics with Tim | Pope Hats’ Ethan Rilly
Pope Hats 3
It’s not every month that we get to discuss a new issue of Ethan Rilly‘s Pope Hats, but here we are. This month, AdHouse is releasing Pope Hats 3 and giving readers a chance to enjoy the latest in the unique lives of law clerk Frances Scarland and her pal Vickie (among many other distinctively engaging characters).
In an interview with Robot 6, the Toronto-born/Montreal-based storyteller talks about his view on creating covers, the impact of winning a 2008 Xeric Grant, and his inclusion of the late, great Spalding Gray in his latest issue. As much as I enjoyed reading Issue 3, as a longtime fan of Gray’s writing, I was apoplectic when I found Rilly had worked him into a strip in the latest Pope Hats installment.
Tim O’Shea: First off, a little historical perspective. Last year the Xeric Grants came to an end for comics. You won a Xeric Grant back in 2008. How instrumental was the grant to getting Pope Hats off the ground?
Ethan Rilly: It seems like 10 years ago … Of course it was a great help. It covered printing and shipping costs for the first issue. I can’t say at that point I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the series as a whole, but the seeds were there, and the grant definitely helped get the ball rolling. It’s rare as a cartoonist to receive any financial support for this type of personal work, so I was fortunate. I sometimes do freelance illustration and I get a taste of things going in the other direction—bending your creative energies toward a pre-established need. Doing your own weird exploratory thing is always best.
Does Koyama Press have the coolest publisher backstory ever?
Consider the tale of Annie Koyama, the publisher of the eponymous art-comics outfit Koyama Press, as explained to Robot 6′s Chris Mautner (him again?) for CBR.
Her successful career as a producer in film, television, and commercials came to an end when she was handed a terminal diagnosis of multiple brain aneurysms. Unable to work, she started playing the stock market with no experience whatsoever…and ended up generating enough cash to form both a nest egg for herself and a slush fund for local artists whose work caught her eye. Meanwhile, a risky surgical procedure saved her life: “I still have another aneurysm but choose to mostly ignore it” is how she describes what remains of her condition. And now she’s responsible for getting gorgeous comics by Michael DeForge, Dustin Harbin, Steve Wolfhard and more into our hot little hands. Kickass Annie, I salute you.
Read the whole thing for much more on Koyama the person and the press, and what they both look for in art and comics.
