Comic Book Resources

What Are You Reading?

From Hell

Hey there, hi there, ho there, it's time once again for What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is blogger and Top Shelf pr guru Leigh Walton. Want to know what Leigh is reading this week? Of course you do! Click on the link to find out, then let us know what you're reading in the comments section.

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Straight for the art: Tintin sketchbook

O'Malley's Tintin

One of the highlights for me at this year's SPX was having Top Shelf's Leigh Walton show me his impressive Tintin-themed sketchbook featuring art by folks like Bryan Lee O'Malley, Jeff Lemire, Kate Beaton, Jeffrey Brown and many others. Thankfully, Walton has put up a Flickr set of the sketchbook, so that all from near and far can revel in it. Great snakes, what fun!

Memento mori: An interview with Eddie Campbell

Sometime soon (hopefully next week) Diamond will be releasing Eddie Campbell's Alec: The Years Have Pants to a comic book store near you. In a year chock full of great, original work and important re-releases and rediscoveries, this has to be one of the most important books of 2009. I know that statement might come off to some as shallow hyperbole, but it's a risk worth taking.

For the the unfamiliar, Pants collects all of Campbell's autobiographical Alec stories (except for The Fate of the Artist, which was published by First Second) in one big (hardcover or softcover) volume. Since the early 1980s, the artist and writer has been chronicling his life's adventures through his barely disguised alter ego, starting as a feckless young man in the King Canute Crowd to the successful cartoonist and family man in After the Snooter. It's saying something to call these stories his most significant and stellar work, considering he also collaborated with Alan Moore on From Hell and created the elegant Bacchus series. One hopes this new collection (and the new material found therein) provides the opportunity for a re-examination and analysis of this impressive body of work.

I had the opportunity to talk with Campbell late last August over email about the book. This was my second time talking to him and he proved to be as gracious and thoughtful over the computer as the phone, if not more so.

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Unbound: Talking Red Plains with Caryn A. Tate

Caryn A. Tate’s Red Plains, now playing at the Top Shelf 2.0 anthology site, uses the classic Western setting to frame stories that have a bit more depth to them than the standard shoot-em-up. In a series of interconnected episodes, she explores the conflict between ranchers and farmers, the life of a black cowboy, a murder mystery with a twist, and, most recently, a complicated tale of civic life, gun control, and armed revolution.

What makes Tate’s comic tick is her characters, who stretch the Western archetypes with their quirks and flaws: Sheriff Doles, a former handyman whose intellectual curiosity and laid-back style rub the town fathers the wrong way; Jackson Stevens, the trigger-happy, over-privileged son of a wealthy rancher; Bob Schwartz, a seemingly upstanding lawyer with a hidden dark side; Mayor Wells, who suffers from a mysterious illness, and his wife, who seems to be running the show. The four episodes that are up so far are interconnected but can be read on their own as well; together they paint a fascinating picture of life in the Old West. I interviewed Tate by e-mail to find out how she comes up with her stories and puts everything together to make a sum that is greater than any of its parts.

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Thin wallets, fat bookshelves | A publishing news round-up

The Losers

• In case you missed it earlier this week: Vertigo will reprint two books that tie into two of their upcoming media properties. First up, they're collecting the first 12 issues of The Losers into one large paperback that'll come out in January, three months before the movie adaptation arrives in theaters. They're also collecting the Peter Milligan/Edvin Biukovic Human Target miniseries, along with the Milligan/Javier Pulido Human Target: The Final Cut original graphic novel into one volume, just in time for the premiere of the Human Target show on Fox in January.

• SLG Publishing is collecting a couple of Gene Yang's previous books, Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order, into a single volume called Animal Crackers. It'll include a new 12-page story by Yang, which he previews here.

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APE '09 | Exhibit A, NBM, SLG and more

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. I'll be there covering the show, while Matt Maxwell will have a table to sell copies of Strangeways.

And over the next couple days, I'll be posting what various companies and creators have planned for the show. If you'd like to be included, drop me the details on where you'll be, what you'll be selling and all that good stuff.

Exhibit A Press | Jackie Estrada dropped us a note about what Exhibit A Press (table 312) will have at the show, where special guest Batton Lash will be celebrating 30 years of Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

"He’ll be signing the limited-edition Supernatural Law Tales from the Vault Anniversary Special as well as comics and trades," she writes. "We’ll also have Batton’s 'monster cameos,' one-of-a-kind hand-painted miniatures of everyone’s favorite monsters. Plus: new Graphitti Designs Supernatural Law T-shirt!"

More info at www.exhibitapress.com/pages/index.php

SLG Publishing | Jennifer de Guzman sent over an update on SLG's plans for the show. "Jamaica Dyer will be a special guest, so we will have plenty of copies of her new book Weird Fishes," she writes. "Jamaica will also be on the panel Personal Stories on Saturday at 5 p.m. with Dean Haspiel, Phoebe Glockner, and Dash Shaw. I'll be moderating her spotlight panel on Sunday at 12 p.m."

Things Undone

NBM | Ted Rall and Shane White will be at APE; Rall will have a few copies of The Year of Loving Dangerously, while White will sign copies of the recent release Things Undone (which is sitting on my dresser in my "to read" pile; I should read it before this weekend).

Top Shelf | Brett Warnock posts on his blog that Nate Powell, Grant Reynolds and Jeremy Tinder will be at their booth, along with himself and Leigh Walton. And as always, he'll be at the Isotope party Saturday night.

Creators | Scott Morse will be on hand doing commissions and selling the last few remaining copies he has of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science.

Manga | Deb Aoki rounds up what various manga publishers are doing at the show.

What are you reading?

Labor Days Vol. 2

Welcome once again to What are you reading?, the weekly column where the Robot 6 team runs through what comics and other stuff they've been checking out lately. As Chris is in Bethesda this weekend, I'm filling in for him as your host.

Our special guests this time are Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, creators of the Labor Days graphic novels published by Oni Press. Volume two, Just Another Damn Day, is now available in finer retail establishments everywhere. (You can check out a preview here).

See what they've been reading, as well as the rest of the Robot 6 crew, after the jump ...

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Send Us Your Shelf Porn!

Welcome once again to Send Us Your Shelf Porn. Our guest this week is Marc Mason, newly established PR guru for NBM and proprieter of the Comics Waiting Room Web site.

Remember, you too can be a featured Shelf Porn guest. All you need do is take some photos of your burgeoning comics collection and send them to me at cmautnerATcomcastDOTnet. Feel free to include as much or as little info about yourself and your collection as you like.

And now here's Marc ...

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Venditti and Huddleston to issue The Homeland Directive

by Mike Huddleston

The Surrogates writer Robert Venditti is teaming with artist Mike Huddleston on a new book called The Homeland Directive, which is due from Top Shelf next year. While staying quiet on the details, Huddleston has shared a lot of character designs over on his blog.

Straight for the art: Nate Powell's Autopilot

See My Brother Dance isn't some new YouTube craze, but the blog of one Nate Powell, who won a lot of raves last year for his stunning graphic novel Swallow Me Whole. The site's full of the usual sort of news and updates, but also lots of nice art, including the above limited edition poster. (found via The Beat)

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).

Straight for the art | Matt Kindt's new Super Spy sketches

Super Spy

Matt Kindt shares some sketches on his blog for a new Super Spy project he's working on. He's been a busy guy, as he's also doing a new book with Cullen Bunn and Shawn Lee called The Tooth, he's about to start drawing a book called Super Natural plus he has the graphic novel Revolver coming out from Vertigo next year. You can also find a Black Widow story by Kindt in Marvel's Strange Tales anthology.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Tank McNamara

Comic strips | The Washington Post isn't the only newspaper taking a pass on the current Tank McNamara storyline: The San Diego Union-Tribune is putting the strip "on hiatus" for the remainder of the week -- but only after running Monday's installment, which depicted former Vice President Dick Cheney telling the NFL to kill Michael Vick. [Comic Riffs]

Publishing | Heidi MacDonald chats at length with Fantagraphics' Eric Reynolds about the publisher's past and future: "The book industry has been in a state of flux for at least a year or two years. I think that's going to continue as everyone adapts to the larger challenges that print media is facing, and that's going to affect anybody that publishes in print. It comes down to electronic delivery and the shrinking book market in general and just how you navigate these sorts of things. For instance, Amazon has been our #1 vendor for the last few years, but the Kindle is going to affect the way that they sell books. As they change, it's going to affect how they buy and sell our books. Not necessarily bad things, but things that need to be considered and planned ahead for." [PW Comics Week]

Publishing | Brian Heater spotlights Top Shelf Productions' Top Shelf 2.0 webcomics initiative. [Appscout]

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SDCC '09 | Top Shelf Productions

Top Shelf will debut three Surrogates books at the San Diego Comic-Con, and series writer and artist, Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, will be at the Top Shelf booth (#1721) the entire weekend signing all three:

-- THE SIGNED & NUM LIMITED ED OF "THE SURROGATES OWNER'S MANUAL" [the special Hardcover of Vols 1 & 2 combined, limited to 1000]

-- THE SURROGATES (VOL 2): FLESH AND BONEa [the all-new prequel to the hit graphic novel]

-- THE SURROGATES (VOL 1) [new cover edition of the original graphic novel soon to be a major motion picture]

To see all three books, click here: www.topshelfcomix.com/robertvenditti

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SDCC '09 | Thursday programming schedule released

Comic-Con

Comic-Con International has released the programming schedule for Thursday, July 23, as well as some special programming for preview night. You can check out the entire day's worth of activities right here for yourself. Here are some of the highlights ...

• During preview night on Wednesday, Warner Bross Television will show some of their pilots for upcoming TV series -- Human Target, Vampire Diaries and the remake of V.

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