Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Instead of bringing to mind old black & white stories and advertisements, the color [Tales Designed to] Thrizzle now mines the endless well of cheap, awful color comics. The color scheme is so heavily into the CMYK scheme of old four-color comics, and employed so luridly, that the reader is once again forced to dig into each panel slowly. … Kupperman can jab you with a quick joke like a fake ad or a cover for an old comic called 'Cowboy Oscar Wilde,' or he can wrestle you into submission with a shaggy dog…
Comic-Con addenda: Natalia Hernandez! Peanuts! Tote bags!
We have a few extra tidbits to append to our Comic-Con announcement: once again we'll have the pleasure of welcoming the lovely and talented Natalia Hernandez as she debuts the eagerly-awaited third issue of her hit self-published minicomic The Adventures of Crystal Girl! It's a rollicking read for young and old alike. Natalia will be hanging out with her pop Gilbert & uncle Jaime during at least some of their scheduled signing times: Thursday 2:00 – 4:00 PMFriday 12:00 – 2:00 PMSaturday 3:00 – 5:00 PMSunday 2:00 – 4:00 PM We'll also once again be breaking out the silver Sharpies…
Joe Sacco in The Guardian
Joe Sacco returned to his birth country of Malta to report on immigration & globalization in "The Unwanted," a 12-page story running at The Guardian. (Hat tip to ¡Journalista!)
First Look: Prison Pit Book 3 by Johnny Ryan
Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit: Book 2 hasn't even debuted yet (we'll have it at Comic-Con this week) but Johnny's already sent us the cover art for Book 3, coming in 2011. I'm getting tinnitus just looking at it!
Things to see: 7/19/10
Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • Robert Goodin presents an outtake page from his story "The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung" in Mome Vol. 19 • Gary Panter announces a new Jimbo minicomic • Jim Woodring presents two Frank favorites, Frank in Frizland and Manhog's Holiday, now in full painted color • It's your all-new weekly installment of "Cartoon Boy" from John Kerschbaum • From Kevin Huizenga, a new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond, new Fight or Run action, and more process at New Construction • From Steven Weissman, this week's…
New Jim Flora print: G3 in Tampico
A previously unpublished 1970 Jim Flora painting, G3 in Tampico, is now available as a limited-edition print from Jim Flora Fine Art. Read the restoration notes here.
Weekend Webcomics: 7/16/10 (posted 7/18)
It's still the weekend, right? Another volley in the battle of the sexes in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan… …and the PotUS bonds with our allies in this week's Barack Hussein Obama strip by Steven Weissman.
Daily OCD: 7/16/10
Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…[T]he newer crop of contributors [in Mome Vols. 17, 18 & 19 is] a rough and tumble bunch who are bringing some fierce and hard-edged work to the table. …[T]he balance is definitely in favor of the strong stuff, because it is strong stuff — well drawn in a variety of styles, and potentially troubling without cloaking itself in shopworn tropes. … Once again, you're getting your bang for your buck." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly • Review: "And when you’re drawn into the world [of It Was the War of the Trenches] it’s…
Megan Kelso at Seattle’s Third Place Books Tuesday, July 20th
MEGAN KELSO CELEBRATES NEW GRAPHIC NOVEL AT THE THIRD PLACE BOOKS ON JULY 20
Suffering from Comicon separation anxiety? Fantagraphics Books and Seattle's Third Place Books are proud to present an evening with acclaimed graphic novelist Megan Kelso on Tuesday, July 20, talking about and signing her new graphic novel, ARTICHOKE TALES, which the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW recently hailed as "surprising and wonderful,” and about which STRANGER Books Editor Paul Constant declared, “[it] feels like a series of expansions. The characters and their world grow to envelop the reader in a singular, charming way.”
Kelso will be making a rare appearance in her hometown of Seattle, WA, giving a multimedia talk called "Big and Small": How do you construct a story that includes the big wide world, history, culture, sweeping events like war and political change, but that also includes personal, intimate character-driven things like friendship, family relationships, love, sex, babies and dying? How do you meld the two together into a believable whole? How do you humanize important historical players, kings, queens and presidents, and also show how the personal lives of ordinary people are affected by grand events that take place outside their doors? These are the essential questions that Kelso asked herself throughout the creation of Artichoke Tales, and she answers them through examples of her own work, as well as other artists who are engaged with similar issues, from Joe Sacco to Lynda Barry.
This lively talk will be followed by a question and answer session with the audience and book signing.
Listing information:
WHO: Megan Kelso
WHAT: Multimedia talk and book signing
WHERE: Ravenna Third Place Books, 6504 20th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98115
WHEN: Tuesday, July 20, 7PM
Daily OCD: 7/15/10
Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "In Weathercraft, his first foray into graphic-novel territory, Seattle denizen Jim Woodring employs his repertory troupe of ambiguous, liminal characters — Frank, Manhog, Pupshaw, and Pushpaw — to tell the kind of Pilgrim's Progress tale that David Lynch might have conjured up if he were a cartoonist. … Impermanence, the conundrum of physical senses that guide and ensnare at the same time, the challenge of a rational response to an irrational universe — all this and more await the returning fan or the open-minded acolyte in Woodring's best work yet. And for an artist…
