Over on Flickr, I've uploaded over 100 pics from my recent visit to Stockholm, Sweden, to attend the Swedish SPX Festival. I want to thank our hosts, especially Johannes Klenell of GALAGO and Kristiina Kolehmainen of the Stockholm SERIETEKET (that's "comics library" to you Yankees), for a wonderful trip. Five days in Sweden, hanging out with old pals like Dash Shaw (greatest roommate a guy could ask for), Gabrielle Bell, Brett Warnock, and others? It would have been impossible not to have a great time. Came home with a huge pile of great-looking comics (see the photo set for…
Fantagraphics Goes Down Under
Who wants to be one of a mere ten students to take a class from the great Jim Woodring on the art of inking with a dip pen and ink? Well, all you gotta do is get yourself to Australia for GRAPHIC, a two-day long festival held at the Sydney Opera House, August 20th and 21st. Jim will also be part of a panel on Wordless Storytelling, and he'll narrate a slideshow about himself titled Please Stand By. Are you tripping out yet? Well, speaking of "tripping out," Jim is also doing a panel on Altered States… with R Crumb….
Celluloid by Dave McKean – Previews, Pre-Order
Celluloid by Dave McKean 282-page full-color 7" x 9.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-440-5 Ships in: May 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now A woman arrives at an apartment, but her partner can’t get away from work. She is disappointed and settles in for a night alone, but finds a film projector with a reel of film loaded. The film is scratched and blurry, but she can make out a couple making love. When the film burns out, a door is revealed which leads to a misty town square… and a series of fantastical sexual encounters. But the plot doesn’t…
The Comics Journal update & sale: #301 too big for its britches; up to 1/2 off back issues!
We are victims of our own success! Demand for The Comics Journal #301 is greater than we estimated and advance orders for the issue exceeded what we printed, so we have gone immediately back to press for a second printing. Since we couldn't fill all the orders from the first printing and didn't want to short any one segment of the market — comics stores, bookstores, subscribers — we decided to wait until we receive the second shipment before releasing the book, resulting in a 3-4 week delay, pushing the release to early July. It's been delayed so long already,…
New Comics Day 5/18/11: Eye of the Majestic Creature
This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about it, check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. (It looks like our 3 new arrivals today, Approximate Continuum Comics by Lewis Trondheim, Take a Joke by Johnny Ryan, and Yeah! by Peter Bagge & Gilbert Hernandez may be showing up in some stores this week, particularly on the East Coast — watch this space next week for the "official" announcement.) Eye of the Majestic Creature by Leslie Stein 128-page…
Daily OCD: 5/17/11
Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "This book [Eye of the Majestic Creature] isn't easy to describe, and that's exactly why I love it. Leslie's surreal, funny style is a welcome addition to comics; her world includes a talking guitar and thrift-shop treasures. Though sometimes it's a compliment for me to say I read a book in one sitting, I'll be honest and say this one took me weeks — and that's because my eyes lingered over the detailed panels for perhaps much longer than the author intended. I envy her worldview, though I'm thrilled to have 128 pages…
Lou Reed to appear at The Strand for The Raven
On Monday, June 27 at 7pm, join Lou Reed for a very special reading and question and answer session for his book with Lorenzo Mattotti, The Raven, in the Rare Book Room at the Strand bookstore in New York City. This is a reserve seating event with advance tickets costing $35, which includes a copy of the book, a Strand tote bag, and the chance to meet Lou. Tickets are limited so get yours NOW!
Megan Kelso at the Olympia Comics Festival
Olympia, WA is a city well-known for its DIY ethos, so it's perfect that the guest of honor at this year's Olympia Comics Festival is Megan Kelso, an artist who self-published her influential mini-comic Girlhero throughout the '90s. And, it's also appropriate that we will be debuting the reissue of her collection Queen of the Black Black at the festival! YES! Queen of the Black Black compiles Megan's early Girlhero strips, along with a few other things, into a wonderful redesigned volume. The original limited edition pressing of this came out nearly a decade ago and has been long, gone,…
Things to See: Barack Hussein Obama at What Things Do
Barack is back, baby! Steven Weissman's acclaimed webcomic Barack Hussein Obama, which has been appearing here on our website since October 2009, is reprising its run at Jordan Crane's webcomics site What Things Do, completely re-scanned and re-mastered in hi-def! Now's your chance to catch it from the beginning. And of course we continue to run brand new weekly installments right here. (Why is the strip being re-scanned, you may wonder? Well, let's just say that ol' Barack has some big plans for 2012.)
From Shadow to Light to Lake Mohegan
This Saturday, May 21st, residents of Mohegan Lake, New York will have a chance to learn more about one of the most influential artists from the Golden Age of comics, Mort Meskin! Join author Steven Brower and Mort's son Peter Meskin as they discuss and sign copies of From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin. This is a wonderful (and rare!) opportunity to discuss this unsung hero with them both! The event starts at 2:00 pm at the Barnes & Noble in Cortlandt Town Center [3089 E Main Street].
