The Body of Work

I suppose on a certain level running through all the loot you nabbed at this or that convention seems a bit like bragging, even if the intention is merely to say, “Hey, here’s some cool comics you should check out.” That being said, it seems like a while since anyone’s done one of those “here’s the stuff I bought” posts, so I thought I’d run down some of the more interesting-looking books I nabbed at SPX this past weekend. Forgive me.

The Body of Work by Kevin Huizenga. In addition to promoting the release of Ganges #4, Huizenga had a couple of mini-comics for sale as well. This one features some of the comics he’s been posting online like Postcard from Fielder.

Color Engineering

Danger Country by Levon Jihanian. This is the first chapter of what feels like a rather ambitious fantasy series about warring factions, done in a spartan, but nicely detailed line. This was nominated for outstanding comic and oustanding mini comic this year, and chapter two is supposed to be released in October. File this under “promising.”

Lizzie’s Tail by Darryl Ayo. Ayo won the Promising New Talent Ignatz Award at the show, and reading this mini-comic, a surreal little jaunt about a woman who goes questing for a necklace, it’s not too hard to see why.

Color Engineering by Yuichi Yokoyama. The other big debut book at the Picturebox table. Yokoyama’s Garden has been my favorite book of 2011 so far, so there was no way I was going to pass the chance to nab this collection of color work, most of which seems to have even more of a pop art sensibility than his black and white work. Picturebox also had limited copies of this book available, which looked pretty sweet.

The Naked Heroes by Benjamin Marra. A light goof from Marra, apparently done as a favor for some musician friends, it concerns a tough-as-nails couple that enter an otherwordly bar and end up taking on a two-bodied demon monster and its hellspawn. Lots of blood and violence, as one would expect. At the show, Marra let it be known that he was working on the second issue of Gangsta Rap Posse, the plot of which sounded almost too awesome to be believed.

A Lion in Winter by Jiro Taniguchi. I always try to pick up at least one book at the Fanfare/Ponent Mon table, if only because tracking down their books in stores can be such a tricky proposition (although I should note it has gotten considerably better). This is their latest book, another entry from their top star Taniguichi, although this one, about a young man who attempts to start a career in manga, is apparently his most autobiographical work to date.

Forming

Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly. My comics collection is in complete disarray right now so I can’t look at the first issue for comparision’s sake, but it seems like Rilly’s art has taken a huge leap forward, becoming looser, more assured and more detailed. A nice eurocomics vibe throughout. Look for a more thoughtful, official review to show up sometime in the near future.

Forming by Jesse Moynihan. Another fantasy-style graphic novel, though this tends to lean more towards the mythology side of things, as it deals with a bunch of Biblical/Greek/etc. godlike beings fighting and speaking in a modern idiom. I haven’t had a chance to do more than browse through this, but it certainly seems promising. NoBrow Press did a really nice job with the production here, and I think it’s fair to say it was one of the better looking books at the show. AdHouse had copies of these but they sold out rather quickly on Saturday.

Theories of Everything by Roz Chast. One of the things I like about SPX is how cartoonists outside the traditional indie comics community like Roz Chast and Ann Telnaes  can fit in and be welcomed so easily. As I mentioned in my photo round-up, I’m a rather big Chast fan — honestly, I think she’s the best thing in the magazine these days; certainly the most idiosyncratic — so picking up this chunky “best of” collection of cartoons was kind of a no-brainer.

Spider-Man by Tomer Hanuka

The New Yorker’s John Lahr took in a showing of the big-budget, critically panned Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and and his review can be found on the magazine’s website. But even if you think you’ve heard enough about the troubled production already, there’s a good reason to check this particular review out — the accompany illustration by artist Tomer Hanuka, featuring Spider-Man, Mary Jane and an awesome Green Goblin.

Hanuka details the process of creating it over on his own site. Can we elect him as the official artist for the comic adaptation?

If it’s our umpteenth month with 9.5+% unemployment, it must be Chris Ware on the cover of this week’s “Money Issue” of The New Yorker, showing a family rendered faceless and hopeless by the economy. That’s our Chris — always good for a laugh!

In other news, you must read The ACME Novelty Library #20 when it comes out in November. That is all.

(via Whitney Matheson)

from What Am I Doing Here? by Abner Dean

The Internet is filled with comics riches, and What Things Do, the corner of the Internet run by cartoonist/designer Jordan Crane, contains plenty of them. It’s filled to bursting with new and old comics by the likes of Crane himself, Jaime Hernandez, Sammy Harkham, Kevin Huizenga, Ted May, John Porcellino, Dan Zettwoch, and Steve Weissman. But for me, the big discovery at the site is the work of Abner Dean, a New Yorker and Esquire cartoonist who specialized in anxiety-dream images of (anatomically incorrect) naked people is satirically absurd situations. What Things Do is reprinting the 1947 Dean collection What Am I Doing Here?, and the bounty is rather astonishing — the strength of both the images Dean concocts and his execution of them all but bowls me over. I’ve never seen its like, though if you’ve ever seen Matt Groening’s Life in Hell, you’ve seen a kindred spirit at the very least. The shrunken-down image above truly doesn’t do justice to seeing Dean’s stuff in its full-sized, screen-spanning glory, so click on over and check it out!

Roz Chast's A-Z

One of the sad consequences of having to let my New Yorker subscription run out (bad economy and all that) is that I’ve had to go through some serious Roz Chast withdrawl. Thankfully, the New York Times seems to be feeling my pain, as they recently enlisted Chaz to contribute to their ongoing look at insomnia:

One thing I do when I can’t sleep is play alphabet games. I try to list various things from A to Z: countries, rock groups, prescription drugs, movies, books, celebrities whose first and last names begin with the same letter… you get the idea. I don’t mind repeating categories from one night to another. Diseases might seem to be an unlikely insomnia game category, but for some reason, it’s one of my favorites.

(via)

The magazine’s art director Francoise Mouly explains how she helped put together the recent four-cover anniversary issue (featuring Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine and Ivan Brunetti) in this video. (via)

Yes, the New Yorker

Heidi MacDonald and D&Q beat me to the punch, but just in case you missed the news, I thought I’d let you know that this week’s issue of The New Yorker magazine is sporting four swell covers by Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine and Ivan Brunetti. Supposedly when you arrange the four covers together in a certain way, a super-secret picture forms. Alright, I’ll spoil it: It’s a picture of Eustace Tilly. It must be one of those “Magic Eye” type images though, because I’ve been staring at the bloody things for hours on end, and all I’m getting is a headache.

Unmasked

The New Yorker has posted a new strip by Chris Ware that has a bit of a Halloween theme. And an iPhone.

Via Drawn & Quarterly

The Beat, er, beat me to this Lee Lorenz cartoon in this week’s issue of the New Yorker (I always seem to get my subscription issue several days late), but it’s amusing enough I think to warrant reposting here.

Tomine's new New Yorker cover

Yeah, I think the subject line says it all. (via D&Q blog)

Luke on the Loose

Harry Bliss makes comedy and storytelling work on many levels. How do I know? He crafted comedy out of my dry questions in this email interview. In all seriousness, I credit Bliss’ collaborations with Doreen Cronin (including 2003′s Diary of A Worm and 2005′s Diary of a Spider) as being a key catalyst (by tapping into my son’s sense of humor) in sparking an increased interest in reading for him. So when I found out about Bliss’ new book (for Françoise Mouly’s Toon Books), Luke on the Loose (“Luke looks on at the pigeons in Central Park, while Dad is lost in ‘boring Daddy talk’, and before you know it—LUKE IS ON THE LOOSE! He’s free as a bird, on a hilarious solo flight through New York City”, a story in which he handles both the writing and illustrating roles), I jumped at the chance to email interview him. My thanks to Bliss for his time–and to Ron Longe for his assistance in making this interview possible.

Tim O’Shea: You’ve worked with Françoise Mouly for years at the New Yorker–in terms of Luke on the Loose coming together, did she seek you out to work with the Toon Books imprint–or did you seek the publisher out yourself?

Harry Bliss: Francoise asked me to contribute to Toon Books and she is the publisher, so…

O’Shea: You’ve collaborated with several children authors, including Doreen Cronin, Kate DiCamillo, Alison McGhee and Sharon Creech. Were there any storytelling assets or lessons you took away from these collaborations?

Bliss: I learn many things from all the wonderful authors I’ve had the good fortune to work with over the years, mainly, how to integrate words and pictures. It’s really a dance, trying to pair up the text with the art, not simply illustrating the words, but to move the story forward visually. If something is not enriching the story/characters, then it needs to go. This was especially critical with Luke. The author and I went back and forth constant- wait, I wrote Luke! Sorry.

O’Shea: Growing up, who were some of your favorite children illustrators?

Bliss: I loved Sendak, Seuss, Carl Barks, Modigliani, Remy Charlip, Millet, Rothko, Walt Kelly, Charles Addams, Charles Schulz, Picasso, Daumier, Turner, Homer, Crumb, Ingres, Will Eisner…I can go on…

O’Shea: Are you open to doing future adventures with Luke in another book in the future?

Bliss: I won’t do another book with Luke. He’s had his fun.

O’Shea: I love how you render the eyes in most of your cast–who or what influenced your approach in drawing eyes in such a manner?

Bliss: The treatment of eyes came naturally, I didn’t plan it, I always like a deadpan look as opposed to an exaggerated expression — less is more, I suppose.

O’Shea: I’m always impressed at how many comedy bits and asides you’re able to squeeze into the page. But that being said, did you have to edit some of the comedy bits out of the book–for fear of overloading the young readers?

Bliss: The sight gags in the backgrounds of my books came from my love of Will Elder, a brilliant Mad magazine cartoonist who was a master at this sort of thing. I try to add as much as I can and I’m careful that the extra gags don’t interfere with the central story. The extra visual gags are fun and the kids just love them, so I really work hard to give my readers a lot to explore.

O’Shea: On page eight, there is a dog reading a newspaper in the background. Was that a slight homage to the classic work of James Thurber?

Bliss: No homage to Thurber, I just enjoy anthropomorphizing animals, but Thurber was a genius and I adore his art and writing.

O’Shea: I was amazed at the action and comedy that plays out on pages 18 and 19 (with the foiled marriage proposal)–would you say that was the most challenging scene to layout and ultimately execute? If not, what do you consider to be the ambitious page or scene in the book?

Bliss: That spread was fun to do — not too tough, just used a lot of tracing paper. Action like this in sequential panels takes patience, but it’s an animation of sorts, like a flip book only with comic panels. The difficult page for me was the Brooklyn Bridge page — tricky.

O’Shea: The book design is by Mouly and Jonathan Bennett. Was the Luke map of New York’s five boroughs (on the back interior cover) their idea or yours?

Bliss: I forget whose idea the map was on the last page of the book, I believe it was mine or Françoise‘s. We’d felt something was needed to expand on the story and a map of Luke’s journey seemed like a good idea.

O’Shea: In terms of marketing your new book to school libraries, how helpful was it for Luke on the Loose to be designated as a Junior Library Guild Selection?

Bliss: I know nothing about marketing (thank God), I just make the best pictures I can and hope the publisher does right by the book — Françoise worked very hard to make the Toon Books accessible.

O’Shea: Last year saw the release of Death by Laughter with an introduction by Christopher Guest. How did you get Guest to do the intro? And do you have any plans to do another collection along those lines in the near to long term?

Bliss: Death By Laughter is a collection of my single panel gag cartoons and I’m very proud of it. Charles Kochman at Abrams did a wonderful job editing the collection.

I’d met Jamie Lee Curtis through my editor at Harper, Joanna Cotler and through this connection I was able to reach out to Chris Guest, who is married to Curtis — plus, Jamie and Chris own a few of my New Yorker originals. I do plan to do another cartoon collection — in the works.

O’Shea: You have quite an amazing collection of mature comedy bits on YouTube–would you ever consider doing a comedic graphic novel for a more mature audience (more mature than your target market for your Toon Book, I mean)?

Bliss: Wow, I feel dirty knowing that you’ve seen the You Tube stuff. You should Facebook request me as a ‘friend’ — I have over 100 videos on my Profile. I love making the shorts, they’re a blast and my ‘friends’ enjoy the irreverence. If you want to get to know Harry Bliss, watch the videos and I apologize in advance if they offend anyone…really sorry.

No graphic novels for me, it’s too much work, I’m too lazy, and quite honestly, I’d rather play hockey.

O’Shea: Is there anything you’d like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about?

Bliss: Leaf Blowers and waste. I despise leaf blowers, in fact, I’m about to make a video making my case for ridding the planet of the damn things. Waste. I cannot believe the waste in this country, boggles my mind. Something must be done. Oh, and I’m working on a movie too — screenplay in the works, it’s awesome. Did you want to talk about hockey? I love hockey, or we could discuss North Korea? Funny how the Korean War is called ‘The Forgotten War’…

Chris Ware's New Yorker strip

I feel that I should mention that in addition to that swell cover by Daniel Clowes, the latest issue of the New Yorker also features a lovely one-page strip by Chris Ware, as well as a gag cartoon by Ward Sutton and an illustration by Michael Kupperman. Blog Flume also notes that Ware has a strip in the current issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring 2009) and the current issue of Wired.

Rorschach Tilley, by Marcus Parcus

A couple of days ago Chris Mautner mentioned The New Yorker‘s annual Eustace Tilley Contest, in which artists are invited to reinterpret the magazine’s iconic dandy. Drawn! has skimmed over the gallery of entries submitted so far, and uncovered the terrific Rorschach Tilley, by Marcus Parcus.

Eustace Tilley

See what I did there? I made a pun! I’m so clever and sassy.

Anyway, The New Yorker magazine (and Web site) have announced their second annual Eustace Tilley contest. Perhaps you remember the first one. Perhaps not. Either way, let me remind you of what it all entails:

Eustace Tilley was drawn by Rea Irvin, the magazine’s first art editor, for the cover of the first issue of The New Yorker, in 1925, and has returned for nearly every anniversary issue since. (Louis Menand gives a detailed history of Tilley.) For the past two decades, the magazine has invited contributing artists to reinterpret this iconic dandy, and last year readers contributed to the 2008 Eustace Tilley Contest.

Create your own Eustace Tilley by January 15, 2009, for a chance to win and be featured in an online slide show curated by The New Yorker’s art editor, Françoise Mouly.

All entries must be received by Jan. 15 (i.e. a week from Thursday). Winners will be announced with the release of the anniversary issue on Feb. 2. You can see who’s entered the contest so far here, and view a slide show of some of last year’s winners here. Keep in mind that, if I’m reading the rules right, the magazine owns your art if you do submit.

(Thanks to Bill Kartalopoulos for the link. By the way, when are you going to update your blog again Bill?)