Comic Book Resources

Straight for the art | Jeffrey Brown’s Haruki Murakami

Jeffrey Brown’s Haruki Murakami

Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!, the blog that posts portraits of authors by comic creators, recently posted one of Haruki Murakami by Jeffery Brown. You can see the back story on it, also by Brown, over at Kevin Church's blog.

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.

SPX announces 2009 programming

SPX 2009

The programming schedule for this year's Small Press Expo is up on their website, which includes spotlight panels on Gahan Wilson, Peter Kuper, Jeffrey Brown, John Porcellino and more, as well as a critics round table that features our own Chris Mautner and recent guest blogger Sean T. Collins, among many others:

Critics’ Roundtable

A murderers’ row of comics critics will address general issues facing comics criticism today and will candidly discuss several new and recent works in a lively, no-holds-barred, roundtable conversation. Rob Clough, Sean Collins, Gary Groth, Chris Mautner, Joe McCulloch, Tucker Stone and Douglas Wolk will share their acute critical insights with moderator Bill Kartalopoulos.

Overall it sounds like a great line-up, so check it out if you're able. SPX will be held Sept. 26-27 in Bethesda, Maryland.

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.

Venditti shares 'The Ugly Truth'

The Ugly Truth

While some folks collect sketches of comic characters (like the Watchmen) from artists at conventions, Surrogates writer Robert Venditti collects sketches of himself -- or of his baby picture, to be precise. And he's started sharing them every Monday at his blog, starting with one by Jeffrey Brown.

(Speaking of Brown, don't miss his Wolverine vs. Hulk strip over at the Top Shelf blog).

Jeffrey Brown's 'Bad Milhouse'

Bad Milhouse

Jeffrey Brown, one of several creators contributing to Bongo's Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror comic this year, shares some rough sketches of the first page of his story here and here. His story, "Bad Milhouse," features Bart's best friend in a story inspired by the TV movie Bad Ronald.

Kramers Ergot meets the Simpsons in this year's Treehouse of Horror

©2009 Bongo Entertainment, Inc. The Simpsons © & ™Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

I somehow missed this in Tucker Stone's report from MoCCA last week, but luckily Heidi over at the Beat caught it -- Stone spoke with John Kerschbaum about his future projects, and the creator revealed that he's working on this year's Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror book for Bongo Comics.

Kerschbaum isn't the only one working on the book, though; as you can see below in the solicitation copy that Bongo was kind enough to send us, they've recruited a Murderer's Row of creators, including Jeffrey Brown, Kevin Huizenga, Matthew Thurber and many more, and it's edited by Sammy Harkham of Kramers Ergot fame:

Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15
Edited by Sammy Harkham
$4.99
48 pages/standard format/color/humor
UPC: 01511 (7-98342-02851-5)

Guest edited by Sammy Harkham, the award-winning creator of the popular Kramers Ergot anthology, this year’s issue is a jam-packed with some of the most idiosyncratic (and weirdest) takes on “The Simpsons” universe ever. Among Halloween-inspired short strips by such visionary cartoonists as Jordan Crane (Uptight), C.F. (Powr Mastrs), Will Sweeney (Tales from Greenfuzz), Tim Hensley (MOME), and John Kerschbaum (Petey & Pussy), are four featured tales of inspired Simpsons lunacy: heralded artists Kevin Huizenga (Ganges, Or Else) and Matthew Thurber (1-800 Mice, Kramers Ergot) collaborate on a weird and wild story equal parts Lovecraftian eco-horror and Philip K. Dick identity comedy. Jeffrey Brown (Incredible Change-Bots, Clumsy) does a creepy and suitably pathetic story featuring Milhouse in a “Bad Ronald”-inspired tale of murder and crawl space living. Harkham and Ted May (INJURY) pull out all the stops for a tragic monster tale of unrequited love, bad karaoke, and body snatching at Moe's Bar. Ben Jones (Paper Rad) does the comic of his life with an epic tale of how bootleg candy being sold at the Kwik-E-Mart rapidly spirals out of control into an Invasion of The Body Snatchers-like nightmare of a Springfield filled with cheap bootleg versions of familiar characters. And nobody does squishy, sweaty, and gross like up and coming cartoonist Jon Vermilyea (MOME), who outdoes himself with “C.H.U.M.M.,” a C.H.U.D.-inspired parody featuring everybody's favorite senior citizen, Hans Moleman!

With a cover by Dan Zettwoch, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15 is like nothing you've ever seen, and is sure to be one of the most talked about comics of the year by alternative comic readers and Simpsons fans of all ages!

This goes on my "must buy" list.

Jeffrey Brown's 'Not If, But When'

from Not If, But When

Each month Creative Time Comics "invites artists to produce new, online comics that address the issues facing our world." This month's guest artist is Jeffrey Brown, who creates a strip about a trip to the museum with his family.

Related: Kiel Phegley talks to Jeffrey Brown about process + several of his books

Robot reviews: Funny, Misshapen Body and Sulk

Funny, Misshapen Body

Funny Misshapen Body
by Jeffrey Brown
Touchstone Books, 320 pages. $16

Sulk Vol. 1 & 2
by Jeffrey Brown
Top Shelf Productions, $7 each.

Jeffrey's Brown's latest memoir, Funny Misshapen Body, is a departure from his past autobiographical work. It's a lot more straightforward, for one thing, even though it's divided into a series of short vignettes and goes back and forth in time. A large part of that is due to the fact that he employs a first-person narration throughout the book that he's avoided up till now. Perhaps that's why this is one of his most assured and confident works to date. As much as I enjoyed Little Things, his last book for Touchstone, I think Body is a stronger work, perhaps because it's more direct.

Continue Reading »

Attention please: Jeffrey Brown has a new blog ...

... and he's posting pictures of G.I. Joe on it.

Snake Eyes!

That is all.