Eurocomics
What Are You Reading?
The Bulletproof Coffin
Welcome to this week’s edition of What Are You Reading. JK Parkin is off enjoying the APE convention this weekend, so I’m filling in. Our guest this week is blogger and critic Sean Witzke. To find out what he and the rest of the Robot 6 staff have been reading this week, just click on the link below.
- October 17, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Usagi Yojimbo: Return of the Black Soul
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Paul Maybury, creator of the webcomic Party Bear. His work can be found in Comic Book Tattoo, various volumes of Popgun and 24seven, and, of course, the full-length graphic novel Aqua Leung. Be sure to check out the sketches he shares.
To see what Paul and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click on the link …
- August 8, 2010 @ 09:47 AM by JK Parkin
What are you reading?
Adam Strange Archives Vol. 1
Welcome to another round of What Are You Reading. With JK Parkin in the midst of San Diego Comic-Con madness, I’m taking over the WAYR duties for this week. Our guest this week is blogger, noteworthy critic and Newsarama contributor Matt Seneca.
Find out what Matt’s been reading (he’s got a long list), and be sure to include your own current reading list, after the jump …
- July 25, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
The return of the Smurfs
New edition of The Purple Smurf
The Smurfs are back! What, you didn’t know they ever left? Apparently the little blue guys have been out of print, at least in the U.S., for years, but NBM/Papercutz is bringing them back, with the first volume, The Purple Smurf, set to debut in August. (Incidentally, the Urban Dictionary has two definitions of “The Purple Smurf,” and neither of them is obscene. Go figure.)
Most people experienced the Smurfs as animated cartoons, rather than as comics, but that’s the origin — they first made their appearance in a Belgian kids’ comic in 1958. Jog, who broke the news (on a tip from Pedro Bouça), has more commentary, including the note that the purple Smurfs were actually black in the original comic; apparently the symbolism was too heavy-handed for the folks at Hanna-Barbera, who re-colored them in the animated cartoon.
NBM/Papercutz does a nice job when they bring European comics over here, except for a tendency to shrink them too much. At first glance, these look like full-size albums (like Tintin), but the type makes me think they are going to be smaller. The Amazon listings don’t give a trim size.
- April 26, 2010 @ 05:02 AM by Brigid Alverson
Preview: ‘Hey Princess’
Hey Princess
Today we wrap up our look at Top Shelf’s upcoming Swedish Invasion with a preview of Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson. The book is a confessional autobiography centering on Jonsson’s arrival into the big city and his desperate attempts to find love and become hip. Not necessarily in that order.
Our exclusive preview begins just as Mats has finally convinced the girl of his dreams to break up with her boyfriend and come out with him to a concert… after which she promptly disappears with the band’s lead singer to ‘hang out’ in his hotel room …
- February 16, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Preview: The Troll King
Continuing our-three part preview of Top Shelf’s upcoming Swedish Invasion line of graphic novels, today’s we’re offering a look at The Troll King by Kolbeinn Karlsson. Here’s the synopsis from the official page:
A dwarf falls into a river and is taken to a place beyond space and time. A carrot takes a bath and finds itself transforming. Two reclusive mountain men rejoice when their wish for children is granted, but their sons make a terrible discovery. And throughout all these tales, the spirit of the forest walks on… Welcome to the surreal world of The Troll King, by Swedish visionary Kolbeinn Karlsson. It’s a fantastic journey into the wilderness lurking right outside your town, brought to you by comics’ cuddliest Viking.
Sounds like my kind of comic! You can determine if you feel the same by checking out the preview after the jump.
- February 10, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Preview: ’120 Days of Simon’
120 Days of Simon
Last week (or thereabouts) Top Shelf announced The Swedish Invasion, a publishing campaign by the company to help North American readers become more aware of Sweden’s apparently abundant comic goodness by releasing a plethora of graphic novels from some of that country’s more notable talents this spring.
We here at Robot 6 are pleased as punch to present a preview of three of these upcoming works this week, starting with 120 Days of Simon by Simon Gardenfors.
Simon is Gardenfors’ chronicle of his trip across Sweden. I’ll quote liberally from the press release:
The 120 Days of Simon began when Swedish cartoonist/rapper Simon Gärdenfors left his home to spend four months on the road. The rules were simple: For 120 days he wasn’t allowed to return to his home, or to spend more than two nights at the same place. Otherwise, anything could happen… and it did.
This simple idea grew into an epic adventure across Sweden as Simon slept on strangers’ couches, visited an ostrich farm, ate a psychedelic cactus, practiced free love, received death threats, was beaten up by teenagers, got adopted by a motorcycle gang, drank obscene amounts of alcohol, and sacrificed his underpants to the Nordic god Brage. And that’s just for starters!
Apparently the book’s publication caused a bit of consternation in his home country. Anyway, the preview of Simon lies in wait after the jump. Look for previews of more Swedish comics from Top Shelf in the days to come.
- February 8, 2010 @ 11:20 AM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Preventative Maintenance
Welcome to What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is none other than the highly esteemed Eddie Campbell, author of the autobiographical Alec series, as well as the mythological Bacchus and co-conspirator with Alan Moore on the acclaimed From Hell.
I had originally interviewed Mr. Campbell about a month ago in anticipation of the release of his whopping big Alec omnibus collection, The Years Have Pants, so this is more of a What Were You Reading than a What Are You Reading, but I nevertheless think you’ll be intrigued by his selection. Look for the rest of my interview with Campbell to show up here at Robot 6 either later this week or next.
Click on the link below to continue reading.
- October 25, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | The Groovy Age of Horror’s epic Flickr gallery
Curt Purcell's paperback gallery
Does your love of trash put Oscar the Grouch to shame? Then feast your eyes, glut your soul on the (extravagantly NSFW) Flickr account of Curt Purcell, the blogger behind equally unworksafe horror-blogosphere cornerstone The Groovy Age of Horror. Curt’s been sharing his extensive collection of pulp paperbacks and X-rated Italian horror comics for years now, and he’s recently scanned in hundreds of their covers, helpfully divided into Fumetti, Horror Paperbacks, and the aptly named Sleaze Paperbacks for your browsing pleasure. For fans of the seedy side of Eurocomics or the lurid illustration styles of yesteryear, it’s tough to top.
Also worth checking out: Curt’s series of posts on Blackest Night (with an extensive detour into the classic Levitz/Giffen Legion storyline The Great Darkness Saga). A lapsed comics reader, Curt has been drawn back in by this year’s big DC event’s horror overtones, and his outsider/insider perspective regarding the evolution of “event comics” is quite fresh and eye-opening.
- October 8, 2009 @ 10:36 AM by Sean T. Collins
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
Hate Annual
• Fantagraphics reveals that Peter Bagge has a new Hate Annual lined up to come out next year and shares the cover image. I thought Bagge had completely given up on these, so this is very good news indeed. More Buddy Bradley! Whoo!
• While we’re talking about Fanta, it’s worth noting that Joseph Lambert of Turtle, Keep It Steady fame will be joining the Mome family. In related news, Derek van Gleason posts some teaser images of his ongoing story in that anthology.
• Alan David Doane has published an e-book of his interviews with various cartoonists and comics industry folk, including Charles Burns, Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Sim, Howard Chaykin, Mark Millar and more. You can download a copy of the book here.
• Cinebook, which translates and publishes a number of French comics for the U.S., such as Lucky Luke, has acquired the rights to the XIII series and will start releasing volumes in May of next year, with a book coming out every two months.
• Jeffrey Brown is working on a sequel to his Cat Getting Out of a Bag book. This one will be tentatively called Cat Walks.The first book was also apparently popular enough to warrant a series of tie-in postcards and journals.
• Secret Asian Man cartoonist Tak Toyoshima is moving his strip from a daily to a weekly strip, which was its original incarnation.
• Via Spurgeon: Paul E. Fitzgerald has a book out exploring Will Eisner’s time on PS Magazine.
- September 3, 2009 @ 10:15 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Thierry Martin’s Spirit
Thierry Martin's Spirit
Check out this great cover Thierry Martin did for a French Spirit magazine that’s coming out in 2010. (via the Ephemerist. Yes, again)
- August 24, 2009 @ 09:41 AM by Chris Mautner
Collect This Now! | Pop. 666 by Francesca Ghermandi & Massimo Semerano
Occasionally an editor hangs on to samples that artists send him, afraid they may never see this material again. Somewhere in my files, I have little gems sent to me by sometimes famous artists, sometimes soon-to-be-famous artists, and somewhere, I may still have some that never became either, young hopefuls that never carried through or people who I failed to find a place for.
Francesca Ghermandi is one of the people whose packages I cherished when they used to come to me. I think she wrote me twice, and as a result, I have copies of Helter Skelter and Hiawata Pete, both in Italian, both absolutely brimming with amazing cartooning. These would be great candidates for that Robot 6 column where they demand books get translated, and boy, I’d sure love to read them someday. For now, I just look at the pictures.
In with these is a plastic comb notebook with a clear cover and photocopied pages of the first several chapters of Pop. 666, then called Suburbia. It only had one chapter in English, the one published by David Mazzuchelli in Rubber Blanket, the rest was not translated. Like the hardbound cartoon books Francesca had sent me, however, the strange and grotesquely beautiful world she drew sucked me in. I really wanted to publish this stuff in Dark Horse Presents. I don’t know why it didn’t come to pass, maybe I couldn’t get anyone else to see what I saw. There is no date on the letter, Francesca could have sent the same packet to Fantagraphics right about then. The timing makes sense. They started serializing the story off and on in their anthology Zero Zero beginning with the 19th issue in the summer of 1997. They eventually printed all 90 pages, but unlike some of the other strips from the magazine, Pop. 666 has never gotten its own collected edition.
I’m not sure who came up with the title Pop. 666, but it calls to mind the title of Jim Thompson’s western novel Pop. 1280. Thompson is one of the best of the hardboiled school, having written classic genre pieces like After Dark, My Sweet and The Grifters, inspiring many a modern crime writer and filmmaker. Thompson’s book is about a sheriff at odds with his town, the kind of squalid community where all life is a give-and-take proposition. These people are damned by their own evil deeds, they are the future populace of hell. Pop. 666.
- August 1, 2009 @ 12:01 PM by Jamie S. Rich
Straight for the art: T.O.T.T.
Ott cartoon
The deliciously macabre German cartoonist Thomas Ott has a new Web site up with lotsa art and other cool stuff. (via Flog)
- July 15, 2009 @ 09:17 AM by Chris Mautner
Translate this now! La Revolte d’Hop-Frog
La Revolte d'Hop-Frog
Every so often I like to use this column to focus not just on the various American comics that have languished in uncollected obscurity for far too long, but to also examine great works found in other comics-loving countries like France and Japan that for reasons both frustrating and inscrutable have yet to arrive on our shores.
So this week I’m looking across the Atlantic to a 1997 graphic novel written by David B and drawn by Chris Blain, both French. Both names should at least ring a bell with the discerning indie reader, David B. having won well-deserved plaudits for his extraordinarily haunting memoir Epileptic, while Blain found his name on a number of top ten lists last year with First Second’s release of his revisionist Western Gus and His Gang.
La Revolte d’Hop-Frog is a Western as well, though it bears little resemblance to Gus, however, or to any Western I’ve ever seen or read. It’s more like The X-Files set in 19th Century Texas. Oh, it has plenty of gunfights for sure. And cowboys. And tons of Indians. The central plot, however, revolves around a number of talking teapots, guns, lamps,stoves and other inanimate objects gaining sentience and declaring all-out war on their previous owners.
Panel from 'Hop-Frog'
- July 13, 2009 @ 03:20 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Asterios Polyp
Welcome to What Are You Reading, where we don’t let a little thing like national holidays and fireworks prevent us from talking about our current reading exploits. Our guest this week is cartoonist (you can see his work in the new anthology Syncopated) and editor Paul Karasik, whose latest book is the highly accclaimed You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! the second collection of comics by the late Golden Age artist Fletcher Hanks.
To discover what Paul and the rest of us are reading, simply click on the link below …
- July 5, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner