Comic Book Resources

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.

OMG, I think I might squee

Little Mouse Doll

As part of their ongoing promotion of Jeff Smith's first children's book, Little Mouse Gets Ready, publisher Toon Books has made an exclusive plush doll, created by dollmaker Sabrina Cho. It retails for $75 and comes with a certificate of authenticity and a copy of the book signed by Jeff Smith. Also: It's too cute for words.

Found via Comics Worth Reading

Robot Reviews: Kids' comics roundup

Little Mouse Gets Ready
by Jeff Smith
Toon Books, 32 pages, $12.95.

Children's comics don't get more basic than this. Little Mouse wants to go play in the barn with his brothers and sisters, but first he has to get dressed. He does so step by step showing readers important things like how to button your shirt (and illustrating a narrative sequence of events). Then there's a punchline and rimshot, the end.

Smith's art is lush and spry here. I especially liked Little Mouse's Warner Brothers-style reaction at the end. There's no denying it's a cute book, made by an extremely talented guy. But this is really a book for preschoolers and those just learning to read. If you know someone like that, then Little Mouse will make a great gift. But older Bone fan, even those still in elementary school, aren't going to get too much out of this, beyond a chuckle or two at the end.

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Straight for the art | RASL #5 preview

from RASL #5

Cartoon Books has posted a preview of the next issue of Jeff Smith's RASL, where the main character has a blackout and things get a little weird. The comic is due July 15, and as previously noted, will be the first 24-page issue.

SDCC '09 | More exclusives, more panels, more everything

40th Anniversary Souvenir Book

The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con is less than a month away, with preview night kicking things off on Wednesday, July 22. If you are a publisher, creator, retailer or any other kind of exhibitor who would like to let folks know about any special plans you have for the show (panels, signing schedules, exclusives, debuts, etc.) drop me an email and I'll run it here.

Also, to the right is the 40th anniversary souvenir book cover, featuring art by the great Rick Geary. Comic-Con debuted it on their Twitter feed, where they've also been announcing panels and auctions for membership badges.

Publishers | Red 5 Comics will be at booth S-9 in the small press area, with the creators of We Kill Monsters, Neozoic, Atomic Robo and Afterburn available for signings.

Books | Scott Morse says he'll have about 100 copies of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science, which sold out before its release after being mentioned on BoingBoing. He's also taking orders for a signed and numbered edition, which he'll bring to the con if you order one.

Exclusives | Becky Cloonan will have a set of four silkscreen prints at the con, limited to 100 "signed, numbered, stamped and enveloped" copies.

I asked if she and the 5/Pixu crew had another book planned for this year, but she said they've all been so busy they haven't been able to do one. She also said she'll have a big announcement at the con, and she'll have a table with with Brian Wood, Cliff Chiang and Jill Thompson.

Mini-comics | According to Ben Towle, J Chris Campbell of Wide Awake Press is putting together a Michael Jackson memorial mini-comic to sell at the con, which will feature stories and pin-ups of the King of Pop.

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Unbound | Comics on the small screen

It may never replace print, but the iPod Touch is starting to emerge as a pretty good platform for comics, at least in the short term. It has several advantages over the Kindle—it has color, the graphics are nice and sharp, and a lot of people have iPods anyway for other reasons. For readers who value portability, it’s a handy alternative to carrying around a stack of books, and even purchased chapter by chapter, comics are generally cheaper in the iTunes store than in print form. A handful, such as Yoshitoshi ABe’s Pochiyama, are only available that way.

At the moment, most of the comics available for the iPod are print comics that have been adapted to the new format, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Overall, it’s a different type of reading experience, and with the right comic and good formatting, it can be as good as or even better than reading the print version.

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What Are You Reading?

Madman Vol. 1

Welcome to another fun-filled episode of What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 team talks about comics, graphic novels and whatever else we've read recently. I'm filling in for Chris Mautner, who is out of town this weekend.

Today's special guest is Scott Wegener, artist on Atomic Robo, which is published by Red 5 Comics, and Killer of Demons, published by Image.

To see what Scott and the rest of us have been reading, click on through, then tell us what you've been reading in the comments section.

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'The Cartoonist' trailer

I had no idea anyone was making a documentary about Jeff Smith and the self-publishing movement, so I'm thankful to Tom Spurgeon for bringing it to my attention.

Jeff Smith's RASL to have fewer pages on a bimonthly schedule

RASL #5

Earlier this week Jesse Reese at the Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader? blog noted that the biggest drawback of Jeff Smith's RASL was the relaxed publishing schedule.

"The biggest problem with RASL is its slow production schedule," Reese wrote. "A general problem with serialized comics, especially when a creator has a larger picture in mind, is focusing obsessively on what is the equivalent to a single chapter in a book. RASL suffers intensely from this reading experience."

(I should note that the rest of the review, which focused on the story itself, was very positive and is definitely worth your time if you're interested in learning more about the book).

Apparently Jeff Smith has heard Reese and other readers who have had similar concerns, so he's moving the book to a new schedule. Starting with issue five, the book will be fewer pages -- 24 versus 32 -- and in the fall Smith will publish it bimonthly.

"When I came up with this format, I thought the extra pages would make up for a slower release schedule, but the demand for more issues gets louder every time a new chapter comes out," he writes on his blog. "I think everyone I heard from liked the extra pages, but they’d rather have less time between issues."

He also notes that he has a "secret project" he'll be working on in the late summer timeframe, which is why the bimonthly schedule won't kick in until October. He also notes that this means he'll publish more issues of the book, as he still plans for it to be about "350 pages or so." Click on over to read his full post and to see some work-in-progress blueline images.

Straight for the art | Jeff Smith shares RASL #4 preview

from RASL #4

Some things are well worth the wait. Jeff Smith shares a few pages from the fourth issue of his latest series, RASL. The book is due in shops a week from today.

What's more awesome than awesome? Awesome 2: Awesomer

Awesome 2: Awesomer

A couple of years ago the guys who do the Indie Spinner Rack podcast worked with several of their past guests to create an anthology simply called Awesome. This Spring brings the sequel, Awesome 2: Awesomer, which features a nice cover by Jeff Smith and contributions by Alex Robinson, Fred Van Lente, Dave Roman, Jim Rugg, Kevin Colden, Fred Chao, Jeff Lemire, Salgood Sam, Julia Wertz and many more. Check out the full list here.

And while the list of folks involved is impressive enough, there are two elements to the project that I thought really put the "er" in "Awesomer." First, half the proceeds for the book will go toward scholarships at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Second, the book includes a mini-comic that collects stories by some of the students at the school ... so not only does the main book include comics by some of the current greats in independent comics, but the mini-comic features creators we'll likely be talking about in the future.

And just to put the icing on the cake ... Jason Lutes is doing the cover for the mini-comic, while Jon Adams of Truth Serum fame is designing the book.

The book is due to hit stores in May and will be published by Top Shelf Productions.

Via the Flight blog

Talking Comics with Tim: Chris Schweizer

Crogan's Vengeance

Chris Schweizer is a creator that lives in my neck of the woods: Atlanta. I always enjoy the opportunity to support (albeit imported) local talent. I recently email interviewed him about Crogan's Vengeance (Oni Press), described by the publisher as  "the first in an ongoing series of adventure graphic novels spanning continents and centuries as cartoonist Chris Schweizer climbs through the various branches of the Crogan clan's family tree! Volume one of THE CROGAN ADVENTURES series introduces us to 'Catfoot' Crogan, an honest sailor who finds himself thrust into a life of piracy! Crogan never wanted to be a pirate and he never dreamed he'd wind up at odds with the most dangerous buccaneer ever to sail the Spanish Main! But there's more to this fight for 'Catfoot' than just staying alive, there's also CROGAN'S VENGEANCE!"

As noted at Schweizer's own site: "He received his BFA in Graphic Design from Murray State University in 2004, and did his post-graduate work in Sequential Art at the Atlanta branch of the Savannah College of Art and Design . . . he now teaches as a professor of Sequential Art and Animation at SCAD-Atlanta."

Thanks to Schweizer for an interview and thanks also to Oni's Cory Casoni for facilitating the interview.

Tim O'Shea: Your pirate tale really relies on strategy being conveyed in battle partially with dialogue and visually, how did you strike a balance that did not make it too detailed or not detailed enough, while still being entertaining?

Chris Schweizer: A lot of it was gut instinct and hope.  In some of the scenes where strategy came into play, I was very mindful of the potential to get bogged down in factual minutia.   I tried to combat this a couple of different ways - firstly, by giving the bare minimum amount of information needed to understand what was going on, making sure that once an idea had been put forth in dialogue that it wasn't repeated in subsequent dialogue.  The other was panel composition and subject focus.  Showing the different members of the crew in varying states of readiness rather than simply following the protagonist, Catfoot, around, bought me a little bit of extra reader attention during these expository battle preparations... at least, I hope it did.

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Random publishing news rundown

Little Mouse Gets Ready

Lots of revelations about upcoming books have come out in the past week. Let's see if we can hit the highlights.

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