indie comics
Everyone’s A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Sandman
Let’s try to run through some of the more notable links of the past several days. My apologies if this is old news to you or I missed something.
• Kicking things off, I should note that the gang at the Hooded Utilitarian are offering an in-depth analysis of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. In order: Noah Berlatsky, Ng Suat Tong, Tom Crippen and Von Marlowe.
• Ken Parille looks at the work of his fellow blogmate Tim Hensley, specifically his Wally Gropius series: “I can’t think of another cartoonist who approaches space — and what we might call ‘spatial color’ — in such a rigorously strange way.”
• Abhay Khosla talks about comics by way of crime novels:
So: a year from now, if we’re unlucky and Vertigo Crime no longer exists, and some so-and-so is screeching that “None of youse fools on the internet people could have done better because we are geniuses who thought of EVERYTHING” … I would suggest that maybe one thing they could have done differently is launched their crime line with crime fiction…? Just a silly thought.
- September 17, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome to Send Us Your Shelf Porn, where the collections are shared and the eyes are dazzled. Our guest this week is Steve Flack of Brooklyn, NY. Steve recently moved into a new apartment, and just finished refurbishing it, comics collection and all. He’s eager to take us on a tour of the place, so get your guidebooks and click on the link …
- September 2, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
• That Freak Brothers Omnibus that came out last year must have done pretty well, because Knockabout Comics has announced Fat Freddy’s Cat Omnibus. Clocking in at 368 pages, cost $29.99 and will be available in North American stores early next month. Need a little bit more background? Here’s the press release:
Fat Freddy's Cat Omnibus
Fat Freddy’s Cat began life as a footnote strip to the Freak Brothers and later appeared in many comics of his own. He is often to be found sleeping on the unfortunate Fat Freddy’s head. His constant battles with the never ending army of roaches out for world domination drive him to distraction, as does Fat Freddy’s never-ending failure to feed him or empty his kitty litter box. As a result of this, his main hobbies seem to be shredding Fat Freddy’s water bed and any other items he can sink his claws into, and finding places to leave surprise poop packages for Freddy to discover. This cat has variously gone travelling to Mexico, saved the world from alien invasion, and worked as a government agent in Washington trying to save the world from the “hee hee hee” drug. He has 3 nephews of unknown origin. He tends to regard the Freak Brothers with a fair bit of contempt, but despite the odd separation he always seems to hook back up with his inept roomies.
• Tom Spurgeon pulls back the curtain on the table of contents for this year’s Best American Comics collection, edited by Charles Burns. That’s a pretty impressive line-up.
- August 13, 2009 @ 09:40 AM by Chris Mautner
Everyone’s A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Asterios Polyp
• The great and all-powerful Ng Suat Tong provides one of the most comprehensive and detailed critiques of Asterios Polyp I’ve seen online yet. Seriously, Tong’s one of the finest critics comics have ever had. The fact that he’s writing again, even if it’s just a one-time thing, is cause for joy.
• Frank Santoro reviews issues #1-4 of Richard Sala’s Ignatz series, Delphine: “The story surrounded me and carried me away to a very real world. It’s a cartooned, exaggerated world, but a real world nonetheless.”
• Johanna Draper Carlson reads a whole lotta vampire manga.
• Graeme McMillan offers 25 thoughts on Wednesday Comics. He also admits to liking X-Men Forever. That’s very brave of you Graeme.
• Similar to our Collect This Now feature is David Welsh’s License Request Day, where he picks manga that haven’t been translated yet, but should. This week he recommends something called Paros No Ken.
• It’s been up for a few days now, but I have to point an arrow towards Katherine Dac’s review of Children of the Sea, which is one of the best takes on the book yet.
- August 10, 2009 @ 07:50 AM by Chris Mautner
What are you reading?
Sequence from 'EmiTown'
Welcome to What Are You Reading, where we talk about all the wonderful comics and other stuff we’re currently engaged with and hopefully point you toward some quality material. Our guest this week is Jamie S. Rich, author of the new graphic novel You Have Killed Me and, of course, our guest-blogger for the week.
A bad case of pinkeye kept me from doing to do much reading this week, but thankfully the rest of the Robot 6 team seems to have made up for my lapse. See what they’ve been reading by clicking on the link below …
- August 2, 2009 @ 11:45 AM by Chris Mautner
Truth Serum joins the Kindle revolution
Truth Serum, meet Kindle
You already heard about Archaia releasing Joshua Fialkov’s Tumor on the Kindle. Now Jon Adams emailed us to announce that his second Truth Serum book, The Lonely Parade, is available for the ebook reading device as well. Here’s the short press release:
You need no longer risk the threat of paper cuts and the jeers of those more technologically advanced than you. Truth Serum: The Lonely Parade is now available on the Kindle. What it may lack in a color section and a perforated form that folds out of the book, it makes up for in half-the-priceness. We had to make a few changes for this version, and managed to include the phrase “Suck it, Kindle!”
- July 23, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Vice tells you where it’s at, comics-wise
The Vice comics issue
Vice magazine has put together a handy Guide to Comics, which isn’t really a guide so much as a great compilation of comics-related articles, including interviews with Al Jaffee, Chip Kidd, Anders Nilsen, Chris Onstad, Gerard Way and Craig Yoe. Plus, comics by Lisa Hanawalt, an essay on the glory that is Jimmy Olsen and Gary Panter runs down his top 10 favorite comics.
(via Sean Collins)
- July 23, 2009 @ 10:35 AM by Chris Mautner
Everyone’s A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Asterios Polyp
• Another day, another stellar review for David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp. This time it’s Dan Kois for New York magazine, who calls the book “a great graphic novel” and “a masterpiece.”
• Got some time to kill? Then you might want to check out this lengthy series of posts critiquing the entire 28-volume run of the seminal samurai manga Lone Wolf and Cub. (found via Spurgeon)
• Frank Santoro dubs Mat Brinkman’s Multiforce “terrifyingly good and an indispensable record of possibly the most important serialized comics of the post-Ware era.”
• Jog declares Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea “a fairly lovely production.”
• Johanna Draper Carlson calls Posey Simmonds’s Gemma Bovery “engrossing, even watching people make stupid wrong decisions, it’s a page-turner.”
• Brian Heater thinks Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro is “a rollicking love letter to boundary-less pop-culture, which, by the end, has embraced everything from Night Court to Brand Nubian.”
• Sandy Bilus uses Hellboy Vol. 6 Strange Places to look at how colorist Dave Stewart uses specific palettes to strong effect.
• Rob Clough reads Everyone Is Stupid Except for Me and wonders if Peter Bagge isn’t a modern-day Mencken.
- July 6, 2009 @ 10:15 AM 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
Collect This Now! Rubber Blanket
Rubber Blanket #1
One of the most hotly anticipated books of the year, at least among the indie crowd, has got to be David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp. The book has been earning a plentiful number of plaudits, but part of the interest is surely the fact that Mazzucchelli hasn’t published a book in almost 15 years and hasn’t had a strip published since 2001.
With all the fanfare surrounding the book, however, it seems odd that up till now no one has attempted to collect the three oversized issues of Mazzucchelli’s seminal self-published series, Rubber Blanket. While the three issues aren’t necessarily hard to find, securing them can prove to be a bit pricey. More importantly though, Rubber Blanket was a seminal series, both in Mazzucchelli’s development as an artist and in the indie comix scene of the early 90s.
- June 29, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?
Welcome to What Are You Reading, where we talk about stuff, but mostly books, especially comic books. Our guest this week is our fellow CBR blogger Brian Cronin, whom most of you no doubt know via the excellent blog Comics Should Be Good and author of the new book Was Superman Was A Spy: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed!
To discover what Brian and the rest of the crew are reading, simply click on the link below.
- June 28, 2009 @ 10:20 AM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
Snooker
• Cartoonist Ben Towle has announced the release of Snooker, a 64-page collection of his various minicomics. It’s available for $10 at this site.
• I mentioned awhile back that Charles Burns was the editor for this year’s edition of The Best American Comics series from HoughtonMifflin. It looks like Michael Kupperman is handling the cover chores on that book as well.
• In case you missed it: Archaia is partnering up with Henson Studios to make comics based on the Fraggle Rock, Labryinth and Mirrormask franchises.
• In case you missed it part II: Movie producer and comic book author Jeff Katz has started a new entertainment company, American Originals, that will publish comic books, among other things
• Broken Frontier reveals that Drawn and Quarterly will be publishing an English version of Brecht Evens’ The Wrong Place early next year.
• Save your mana points now: Wizards of the Coast will release their first ever Magic: The Gathering graphic novel, Path of the Planeswalker, in October.
• Hey, Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth is now on sale at Akadot Retail, though it looks like you might pay for the privilege of being a first-buyer.
• Wondering what’s up with the Graphic NYC book? The authors of the photo book of Big Apple cartoonists spill the beans on their publishing plans.
- June 25, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What are you reading?
The Hunter
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our special guest for this week is Chris Butcher, blogger and manager of The Beguiling in Toronto, generally acknowledged as one of the finest comics shops in North America.
Chris is heading off to Japan and taking quite a lot of books with him. What to know what he’s packing? Of course you do. Click on the link to find out …
- June 21, 2009 @ 02:35 PM by Chris Mautner
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome to another episode of Send Us Your Shelf Porn, where we take the photos you send us of your comic book collection and paste them here for everyone to gawk at. And no, we’re not changing the name of this column. Sorry.
This week Carl Jansson, a former manager of Comic Universe in Fountain Valley, CA. Before we begin, however, I want to thank everyone who’s sent in photos over the past week. The amount of interest I’ve received has truly been staggering, and I promise each and every one of you will get your day in the sun. So don’t fret if you haven’t heard back from me yet; you will, and soon. I promise.
And now let’s join Carl on a tour of his home …
- June 17, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Vollenweider’s Cave
Panel from CF's 'Cave'
Vice Magazine, never one to shy away from comics, presents a decidedly odd and somewhat gruesome comic by Christopher Forgues (aka CF).
- June 16, 2009 @ 11:10 AM by Chris Mautner