Comic Book Resources

Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

iPhone applications | Apple has rejected an iPhone application called "Bobble Rep" featuring artwork by MAD Magazine artist Tom Richmond. The application is a database of the members of the U.S. Congress, and includes names, contact information and caricatures of each of them drawn by Richmond. Each image also serves as a virtual "bobblehead" when the phone is shaken.

Apple's rejection letter said "it contains content that ridicules public figures," which they said violates their iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.

"This is the very reason that Apple as a company should be taken to task over its ludicrous and inconsistent app approval policies," Richmond writes. "Clearly this app does not 'ridicule public figures' and is violating nothing, but Apple has decided the world must be protected from the insidious subversiveness this would force upon the public and the brutal, heinous ridicule that my cruel, cruel caricatures would subject these politicians to."

Daryl Cagle, who is waiting to hear back from Apple on a political cartoon application, offers commentary. Richmond says the producers of the application are looking at other options, including other platforms.

Digital comics | Over at Boing Boing, Douglas Rushkoff talks a little bit more about the alternate reality game and online graphic novel he's doing for Smoking Gun Interactive.

Webcomics | Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man fame is considering joining the ACT-I-VATE crew with a new strip, and he needs a name for it. Speaking of ACT-I-VATE, be sure to check out Dean Haspiel's new strip, A-Okay Cool.

Documentary series spotlights Next-Door Neighbor webcomics anthology

The Radar mini-documentary series has released an episode about Next-Door Neighbor, the webcomics anthology edited by Dean Haspiel that ran on the Smith Magazine site.

"We visit Dean, and contributors Joan Reilly and Joe Infurnari, at their communal workspace deep in industrial Brooklyn and discuss the importance of place and community – real life and virtual," reads the description of the video. Check it out below:

Radar One - Next Door Neighbor - For more funny videos, click here

Via

Straight for the art | Haspiel's Bored to Death sketches

from Bored to Death

HBO's new comedy Bored to Death features a lot of art by artist Dean Haspiel, from the opening sequence he illustrated to the sketches by the character Ray Hueston, played by Zach Galifianakis and inspired by Haspiel himself. Now HBO has a page where they're collecting all of the artwork by Haspiel/Hueston.

The many heads of Harvey Pekar

SMITH magazine's Harvey Heads

Harvey Pekar, the irascible, inimitable observational writer whose slice-of-life series American Splendor has been a cornerstone of alternative comics for decades now, turned 70 yesterday. (That's right, he's only seemed like a lovably grumpy old man until now.) To celebrate Pekar's big Seven-Oh, SMITH Magazine--already the home of Harvey's current comics outlet, The Pekar Project--has commissioned over 90 artists and counting to draw Pekar portraits for its Harvey Heads gallery. Contributors so far include Jeff Smith, Jim Mahfood, Jeffrey Brown, Alison Bechdel, Renee French, Molly Crabapple, Bryan Talbot, Bob Sikoryak, Peter Kuper, Josh Neufeld, Joshua W. Cotter, The Quitter's Dean Haspiel, longtime American Splendor artist Gary Dumm and many, many, many more. Click the link and soak up the splendor.

APE is coming

APE Aftermath

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, will take place the weekend of Oct. 17-18 at The Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco. Next week I plan to put together a preview post or two, so if you're exhibiting, please feel free to send me information on your plans -- what you'll be selling, where you'll be ... that sort of stuff.

Also, if you're going to APE and looking for something to do before the show starts or after hours on Saturday, Isotope Comics on Fell Street has events planned both Friday and Saturday night. APE special guest Dean Haspiel will sign copies of the ACT-I-VATE Primer at the store on Friday, while Saturday brings the annual APE Aftermath party and the presentation of the Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. Add'em to your calendar!

Talking Comics with Tim: Tim Hall

Excerpt from current Uplift the Postivicals

I almost renamed the feature Talking Text-Comics with Tim for this week's interview with Tim Hall, but I thought better of it. Hall's project, Uplift the Postivicals, is ambitious, oddly engaging and unlike anything else that ACT-I-VATE has featured over the years. Hall's ACT-I-VATE bio covers everything you need to know before jumping into the actual interview: "Multimedia writer and journalist Tim Hall has been a champion of indie and DIY comics since 1995, when he first began publishing such future stars as Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, Nick Bertozzi, and Sam Henderson (and many others) as part of the New York Hangover newspaper. His stories have since been put into comics form by Rami Efal, Josh Simmons, Michel Fiffe, and as part of Nick Bertozzi's award-winning Rubber Necker series. He is excited to take his writing to a new level at ACT-I-VATE with 'Uplift The Positivicals,' a freeform column of stories rendered as text images. His most recent novel, FULL OF IT: The Birth, Death, and Life of an Underground Newspaper was called a 'Best of 2008' by literary journal decomP and features wicked cool cover art by ACT-I-VATE co-founder Dean Haspiel. Tim lives in a small town in northern Illinois with his wife and son." My thanks to Hall for the interview.

Tim O'Shea: Uplift the Positivicals is described as "Text-based comics, fontasies, soul sutras and shredded prose, rendered in bold, binary alphabetics." I'm not sure where to start with that engaging mouthful, so I'll be
selective in my curiosity--what do you mean when you use the term "fontasies"?

Tim Hall: To be honest, I wrote that description before I had written a single column, so I really screwed myself, didn't I? First I had to map out my narrative territory and get people used to my style and hopefully into the characters. I'm now in the process of incorporating concrete poetry, typographic elements, visual writing and the like into UTP. The challenge for me is to tell a story using words in different ways, without relying on design per se. That's a long-winded way of saying that if I ever figure out what a fontasy is I'll be sure to let you know!

O'Shea: For this story, how did you go about selecting this font in particular?

Hall: I was looking for something bold and condensed that wasn't too overbearing. My primary goal was to make UTP readable on iPhones, while still packing enough info on each panel for desktop readers. I'm leaning more toward the portable devices, and actually just made the template slightly more widescreen.

Continue Reading »

Talking Comics with Tim: Molly Crabapple

Scarlett Takes Manhattan

Molly Crabapple is a successful entrepreneur (as the founder of the Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School) and storyteller. After a recent book tour to support her new Fugu Press book, Scarlett Takes Manhattan, she indulged me in a quick email interview. Her graphic novel is described (on the book's back cover) as "A young woman orphaned in tragic circumstances (by a pair of copulating circus elephants) rises to become the foremost burlesque performer of her era: Scarlett O'Herring."

Tim O'Shea: How did the book land at Fugu Press?

Molly Crabapple: Years ago, I did a catalog cover for a company owned by Christophe (big cheese at Fugu). When he decided to found a comics publishing company, he asked if I had any ideas for graphic novels. The rest, history…

O'Shea: You clearly love to explore the art of sexuality through your work. In those terms, what was the most enjoyable or challenging scene to convey in Scarlett Takes Manhattan?

Crabapple: I actually loved the scene where Scarlett is working as a dock prostitute and is able to avoid an unpleasant client with the help of a watermelon. Sadly, a watermelon was worth more than a blowjob in 1884.

Continue Reading »

Talking Comics with Tim: Evan Dorkin

Beasts of Burden

When an interview goes well, it has very little to do with me. The value of the interview, not surprisingly, is rooted in the answers. Evan Dorkin is proof of this. At one point in this email interview, the man justifiably ridicules my use of the term "sequential art narrative" in a question--and being Evan Dorkin, it's damn funny when he does it. The interview covers a great deal of ground, given the diversity and richness of his career to date. First up, though, is Dark Horse's Beasts of Burden, his upcoming collaboration with Jill Thompson, which is featured on the cover of this month's PREVIEWS. (Beasts of Burden #1's item code is JUL09 0015 [and goes on sale September 16]). Aweek or so ago my associate Mr. Melrose linked to the original Beasts of Burden short story, Stray, that Dark Horse posted to its site (and that Dorkin also mentions at the start of this interview). My thanks to Dorkin for what I hope you agree is a great interview.

Tim O'Shea: You are working on Beasts of Burden, for Dark Horse, what can you tell folks about the project?

Evan Dorkin: Beasts of Burden is a four-issue series debuting this September from Dark Horse, I’m writing it and Jill Thompson is illustrating it, and it’s about a group of neighborhood dogs and a stray cat that band together to fight the supernatural. It takes place in a town called Burden Hill, which has become increasingly plagued by monsters and the paranormal. The human inhabitants are largely oblivious to what’s happening, so it’s up to these “ordinary” animals to defend the area from these occult incursions. It’s a horror comic with adventure and fantasy elements, and hopefully a sense of humor. Each issue is a self-contained story, with some narrative undercurrents running through them.

Continue Reading »