Joshua Hale Fialkov
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Welcome once again to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy based on certain spending limits — $15, $30 to spend and if we had extra money to spend on what we call the “Splurge” item. Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Emitown
Graeme McMillan
It’s a weird week for new releases, with everyone but Marvel taking it easy and pulling back on massive hauls in order to give our wallets a nice holiday break (unless you’re a Marvel completest, in which case, yowza. Look out). That said, if I had $15, I’d put it towards the special 200th issue of What If? ($4.99), the first issue of event tie-in Chaos War: X-Men ($3.99) because I’m curious how Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson handle Marvel’s version of Blackest Night, and the second issue of Scott Snyder and Jock’s Detective Comics run (#872, $3.99), because I was really happily surprised by how much I enjoyed the first.
If I had $30, I’d put Chaos War and What If? back on the shelf, and get Emitown ($24.99) instead. I’ve heard really great things about this print collection of Emi Lenox’s autobio webcomic, and I like the idea of seeing 2011 in by discovering a new cartoonist to love.
Splurging, I’d go back to Marvel, with the brand new Ka-Zar collection by Mark Waid and Andy Kubert ($19.99). I missed out on this series back in the 1990s, but as a fan of both fish-out-of-water stories and Mark Waid stories, something tells me that this might be right up my street.
- December 28, 2010 @ 03:44 PM by Michael May
What Are You Reading?
Creepy Archives
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at what’s on the night stands of the Robot 6 crew. This week our special guest is Kody Chamberlain, who you might know from such comics as Punks, newuniversal: 1959, The Foundation and his latest, Sweets, from Image Comics.
To see what Kody and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …
- August 1, 2010 @ 02:24 PM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Revolver by Matt Kindt
Happy Sunday and Happy Fourth of July, as we once again delve into what the Robot 6 crew are reading this week. Joining us as our special guest this week is Jeff Lemire, creator of Sweet Tooth, The Nobody, The Essex County Trilogy and Lost Dogs, and the writer of the Atom strip in Adventure Comics and the upcoming Superboy series.
To see what Jeff and the Robot 6 crew are reading, click below …
- July 4, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: Joshua Hale Fialkov
Tumor
This interview with Joshua Hale Fialkov (creator of the acclaimed Elk’s Run from a few years ago and current noir work at Archaia, Tumor [which reunites Fialkov with his Elk's Run artist Noel Tuazon]) took an interesting route before finally getting here. The initial interview started as a suggestion from Johanna Draper Carlson back in October 2008 (thanks, Johanna) and was intended for my pop culture blog, Talking with Tim. Fialkov was more than game to do the interview and we completed the initial interview in late 2008, right around the time I signed on to contribute my comics interviews to Robot 6. So, savvy, yet disorganized guy that I am, I set the interview aside–and promptly misplaced it. When news of Fialkov’s Tumor (available here for Kindle and here for free for those of without Kindles) started making the rounds, I realized my mistake and tracked the emails down. I contacted Fialkov (offering my sincere apologies) and he was kind enough to entertain new questions about Tumor. So please note, after the initial Tumor discussion, the interview moves on to the initial 2008 interview, which while it is understandably dated in some aspects, much of it is still quite engaging and relevant. My thanks to Fialkov for his understanding and for his time both in 2008 and 2009.
Tim O’Shea: How pleased have you been with Tumor’s Kindle sales? How much has the story’s word-of-mouth been boosted thanks to the website?
Joshua Hale Fialkov: Well, just using our placement in the ranks on Amazon, the fact that a Kindle only comic book can get up to be the 8th most ordered graphic novel on all of Amazon, including print, is pretty damn amazing. I think there’s a lot of reasons that we’re up there, including that we’re giving the first chapter away for free, but, still, that says to me that there’s an audience for comics on the device, and it’s one that in some ways may soon rival the audience for print comics. At least, for those readers who use Amazon to get their fix. My whole career has been built on a lot of goodwill, and from the support of friends and fans with big mouths and wide audiences, and, frankly, in a niche business like comics, that’s really how the whole thing works. What I hope to do is go the extra mile to really reward my readers, first with what I hope is excellent content, but secondly by giving them access to the stuff over on the website, including behind the scenes material, and special features that not only enhance their enjoyment of the book, but hopefully show them a side of the process they haven’t considered. To that end, there’s a healthy amount of traffic who make it over to the site every time we release an issue, so, I know that in some respects, it’s working.
- September 7, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Tim O'Shea