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Daybreak Vol 2 "Brian Ralph's work is funny, a little sad, and curiously charming.
I wish like hell I could do what Brian does!" "Ralph seems to have found the perfect balance, displaying a strong
command of form, composition, and the comics medium while still
managing to pull it off in a sophisticated style. He infuses
his material with both a sense of gravity and ironic distance." |
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Paul Goes Fishing "I came away from Michel Rabagliati's summer camp memoir, Paul
Has A Summer Job, with a warm sense of second-hand nostalgia.
It has the restorative effect of a sunny day by a sparkling lake...
it reminds you of what you really enjoy literature for - the chance
to connect to others and what's real - and get away from superficiality
and irony. If only my summer camp had been like this…" |
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Hieronymus B. "Articles, discussions and commentaries about Ulf K.'s work always
describe his comics as 'poetic'. And rightly so, because his minimalist,
filigree drawing style, using simple lines to sketch sets and characters,
and his dreamy, romantic narrative style lend his melancholy stories
a fascinating aura, from which it is hard to tear yourself away.
Ulf K. was initially inspired by both the classic ligne claire of
the clear, severe drawing style of a master like the Frenchman
Hergé and also by current exponents of the nouvelle
ligne claire, such as Stanislas and Joost Swarte. However,
Ulf K. has long ago reinterpreted his idols and developed his own
original and unmistakable style." |
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The Rabbi's Cat Vol 2 |
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Gary Panther (HC) "Panter's nervy, muscular mark-making almost carved out of paper,
was the defining graphic counterpart of US punk rock. It marked
a rejection of traditional and empty polish, as radical a break
with the sex-and-dope underground comix as punk music was with
hippie rock groups. Shifting from street-level Slash to
New York no-wave graphix mag Raw, Jimbo
became Panter's outraged hero-vehicle who possesses him to this
day. "I
guess Jimbo has become a sort of alter ego, because I wouldn't
want him to do anything that I wouldn't do." Panter's drawing was
dubbed the "ratty line" and
has never quite lost its folksy naive shakiness, prompting Village
Voice to declare it, "the only punk art there is." Not that Panter's
work is some period piece. Call it appropriating, sampling or theft,
his approach has never stopped morphing, feeding off a mulch of
the trashy treasures of his '50s childhood and mixing a myriad
discoveries, from medieval religious painting to Japanese prints,
to personalise from them something totally unexpected." |
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Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita adapted by Andrzej Klimowski & Danusia Schejbal Self Made Hero/Classical Eye £16.99 Banned for 27 years, and initially published in a heavily censored edition, The Master & Margarita is probably the most important Russian novel of the 20th century. It tells three intertwined tales – the main story set in the 1930s revolves round a visit to Russia during Holy Week by the devil and four of his apprentices as they raise merry hell with anyone unfortunate enough to meet them. The second tale details a lovelorn woman, Margarita, who desperately wants the Devil's help to be reunited with her lover, The Master, who has been institutionalised after falling foul of one the Devil's tricks. The third story retells the meeting between Jesus and Pontius Pilate as seen through the writings of the incarcerated Master. "When I read his stories, I feel as if I am being led by a wide-eyed
boy on his night-time wanderings through those shadowy childhood
corridors. Neither of us sure of what will be around the next corner." |
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Kafka's The Trial adapted by David Zane Mairowitz & Chantal Montellier Self Made Hero/Classical Eye £12.99 The Trial, reinvented in this graphic novel, is a chilling and bleakly amusing tale about Joseph K, a man who is arrested for reasons that are never revealed, and who maintains his innocence in the face of the judicial process. The story maintains a relentless mood of disorientation and quirkiness, right up to the surreal ending. It shows the absurdity of human nature, of people acting upon one manic thought after another without direction and without result. Chantal Montellier is one of France's leading Bande Dessinée
artists. A painter and teacher who abandoned her career in the
'Beaux Arts' to become a cartoonist and illustrator, Chantal Montellier's
work has appeared in a range of leading French newspapers and magazines.
She has written very successful graphic novels, most recently Tchernobyl,
Mon Amour and Sorcieres
Mes Soeurs.
David Zane Mairowitz is an author/playwright/radio director/translator. A professional
freelance writer for 40 years, he has published numerous books, including Introducing
Kafka (with Robert Crumb), Introducing
Camus and Wilhelm
Reich for Beginners. |
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Fritz Lang's M |
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Service Industry Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter - Read Tom's interview with T Edward Bak here. |
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Metronome "I have never in my life experienced anything quite like it.
As a graphic novel, it will be awesome, but as a piece of multimedia
animation (for that's what it is online - not comics, with each
frame replacing the other) it's haunting, harrowing, and enough
to make you want to hit someone. Hard. Take the appalling irony
as you will - it's the gut-felt truth." "Véronique Tanaka is playing mind games with us. Pure comics." |
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Daddy's Girl (HC) "Drechsler choreographs these relationships precisely, stressing
the spaces between the characters and catching the subtle give-and-take
of words and silence. The marvel of Drechsler is that this kind
of attention to detail can be found everywhere in her work, coupled
with extraordinary artistic courage." |
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Jessica Farm "In the last few years, minis I've done have included: Jessica
Farm (an ongoing fantasy adventure story that I started drawing
in January 2000 and have drawn one page a month since, the goal
being to draw it until 2050), Pussies (featuring portraits of vulvas
by almost 100 of the best cartoonists and artists around today),
and a Batman bootleg comic." |
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Mome Vol 11 edited by Gary Groth & Eric Reynolds $14.99 "...I feel like we're in a good groove now, just by widening the pool a bit so people can take an issue or two off, here and there. Most of these folks have jobs, and ten pages every four months is a lot to ask, I can tell you myself. But I thought this was our best year so far (out of what, two?). I'm really happy with a lot of the newer people like Eleanor Davis, Dash Shaw, Joe Kimball, Ray Fenwick, John Hankiewicz, Robert Goodin and Tom Kaczynski. I wish Kramers and Comic Art would fold so I'd get more pages out of guys like Jonathan Bennett and Tim Hensley. Plus, maybe then I'd get some stuff from Sammy, too! I need to work on this. Anyway, I was happy with this year. I've even managed to squeeze in friends like Al Columbia and Jeremy Eaton and even Jim Woodring. This is good. Next year we've got Killoffer, David B., and maybe even a newly unearthed story by this young cat named Fletcher Hanks. Plus a lot of actual living folks I am reluctant to mention because I'm not sure who is in which issues too much beyond #11, but there's a lot of stuff cookin'. I just commissioned a new story from Olivier Schrauwen, who you turned me on to, actually. He's doing a 15-page story for #12." Eric Reynolds discusses Mome with Tom Spurgeon - Read the full interview here. |
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Howie Action Comics by Howard Chackowicz Conundrum Press $15.00 You'll laugh despite yourself at Howard Chackowicz's twisted, funny, yet surprisingly poignant cartoons. A mix of New Yorker gags gone awry, underground comix and nightmarish kids' books illustrations, Howie Action Comics represents many years of the artist's output. Often called a 'cartoonist's cartoonist' Chackowicz was nominated for a Harvey Award for his early work on Dennis Eichhorn's Real Stuff, and his painted comic mural art was officially selected for the Angoulême comic festival in France. Besides working in his art-field, he has taught cartooning and comics in a variety of institutions over the years and his hilarious appearances on the CBC radio show 'Wiretap' have led to a broadcasting award. |
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The Collected And Then One Day by Ryan Claytor Elephant Eater Comics $10.00 This volume compiles issues #1-4 of Ryan Claytor's And Then One Day autobiographical comic book series. This new edition features a brand-new, full-color, wrap-around cover, plus new artwork, an about the author comic, an explanation of that ellusive Summer of 2004, and many other extras. |
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The Complete Terry & The Pirates
Vol 3 (HC) "Starting October 22, 1934, the strip focused on the China wanderings
of a youth and his adult mentor, a vagabond journalist named Pat
Ryan. In less than a year, Caniff, inspired by the work of his
studio-mate, Noel Sickles, developed the most imitated of his refinements,
an impressionistic style of drawing that suggested reality with
shadow rather than with linear particulars. He added realism of
detail, striving for absolute authenticity in depicting every aspect
of the strip's locale, whether Oriental or, later, military. But
Caniff's signal achievement was to enrich the simple adventure
story formula by making character development integral to the action
of his stories: readers wanted to know not just what would happen
but how the characters would fare." |
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The Complete Peanuts Vol 9: 1967-1968
(HC) by Charles Schulz Fantagraphics Books $28.99 Volume 9 in the proposed series of 25 books reprinting the entire 50 years of Charles Schulz's classic strip, Peanuts. "For close to half a century, Charles Schulz has been contributing indelible
images to our consciousness, from Snoopy's fantasized dogfights with the Red
Baron to Linus's security blanket to Lucy's hopeless infatuation with the monomaniacal
Schroder. Some of them even pop up and acquire new, contemporary layers of
meaning, long after we thought they'd been exhausted... Peanuts is, and has
always been, a daily, hand-crafted gift from one of the greatest cartoonists
of all time." |
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The Mighty 12: Superheroes Of Greek
Myth (HC) "Unlike some of my peers who started out in comics but now
divide their time between graphic stories and illustration (with
illustration being the greater half), I would say about 98% of
my output has been devoted to sequential art. Illustration, the
focus on the single image rather than a string of related images,
has always been something to fit in between larger projects...
In 2006 I was approached by Little/Brown Publishing to illustrate
a children's book based on the Greek myths. I began it in February
of 2007. It's my first illustrated book in twenty years and the
first to be fully illustrated, as opposed to the occasional pictures
scattered throughout a novel... The challenge of drawing one large
image as opposed to anywhere from six to twelve images on a page
has been exhilarating." |
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A People's History Of America |
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Benny & Penny: Just Pretend (HC) "Francoise
Mouly is a co-founder of the landmark art-comics
anthology RAW and was its co-editor
from 1980 to 1991, enough in the way of comics credit for any industry
Hall of Fame one can imagine. She is also art editor of The
New Yorker, a position she assumed in 1993, and the moving
force behind a number of artistic and publishing projects spiraling
out of those two cultural institutions. A Raw Junior initiative
she founded in 2000 resulted in the Little
Lit anthologies
at HarperCollins. Mouly
thought that the Little
Lit books
might be a springboard into a line of hardcover comic books for
children. When publisher after publisher took a pass on working
with Mouly on such a line, she returned to her self-publishing
roots and began to put together what would become Toon
Books. Toon will release six volumes over a Spring and a Fall
season in 2008. Coming from a number of different artists, it's
hard to describe the Toon works beyond their prospective target
market except perhaps to say that they're very confident in their
comics format; reading them feels new yet also brings with it a
notion of "Well, of course this is what chapter books for kids
in comics form would look like." Finding a place for comics in
a publishing world that appreciates but maybe not quite yet embraces
them seems a sizable challenge, but one that Mouly is meeting head-on.
I spoke to her on a Saturday morning, months from the formal launch
and she still sounded more busy than I've ever been in my life.
I greatly appreciate her time." |
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Dan Dare: Reign Of The Robots by Frank Hampson & Don Harley Titan $29.95 The latest volume of Titan's Dan Dare reprints features Reign Of The Robots and The Ship That Lived... Dan, Lex, Digby, Flamer and new friend Stripey return from saving the Crypts - ten years after they departed. But in their absence, the unthinkable has occurred: Earth has been conquered by the mysterious Elektrobots. Now Dan and his crew must solve the mystery of these robotic menaces, and liberate the people of Earth. But who is the Elektrobots' master? And what of the Selektrobots, even more advanced robots? The answer points to an old enemy - and a thrilling showdown. Plus a bonus feature on Frank Hampson's The Road Of Courage. |
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Judge Dredd: The Complete America |
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Holmes "I originally had the idea back when I was in art school, over
12 years ago. I was reading Doyle's Holmes stories for the first
time since I was a kid and I was really into Hunter S. Thompson's
work so the idea just seemed so natural to me... Sherlock's only
a junkie when he's not on a case? Yeah, right! It occurred to me
that casting Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo from Fear
and Loathing In Las Vegas as Holmes and Watson would be really funny...
In Holmes, Watson is Sherlock's enabler and, obviously, his
drug connection. Watson feeds Holmes's delusions by buying into them himself.
Watson truly believes Holmes to be the great man he proclaims himself to be,
nevermind that it's personally profitable for him to perpetuate the myth through
his "true accounts" of Holmes's cases. In the comic you see this huge disparity
between what Watson says happens and what really happens!" |
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The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen:
Black Dossier - The Absolute Edition (HC) by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill DC/Wildstorm $99.00 The Absolute Black Dossier - bigger than the regular edition and includes a 45 rpm record of 'Immortal Love' sung by Alan Moore himself... England in the mid 1950s is not the same as it was. The powers that be have instituted some changes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have been disbanded and disavowed, and the country is under the control of an iron-fisted regime. Now, after many years, the still youthful Mina Murray and a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain return and are in search of some answers. Answers that can only be found in a book buried deep in the vaults of their old headquarters, a book that holds the key to the hidden history of the League throughout the ages: The Black Dossier. As Allan and Mina delve into the details of their precursors, some dating back centuries, they must elude their dangerous pursuers who are Hell-bent on retrieving the lost manuscript... and ending the League once and for all. Black Dossier interviews: |
| To Top | ART & ILLUSTRATION: |
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Edison Steelhead's Lost Portfolio:
Exploratory Studies Of Girls & Rabbits "If you're in the mood to stare at individual pages for long periods
of time, allowing them to soak into your consciousness the way
that a particularly sensitive three-year-old might stare at the
pages of an old picture-book until every line, every shading, every
subtle gesture of the artist and facial expression of the rendered
characters has been memorized and internalized — then you will
enjoy The Ticking a great deal. If you
are willing to read it the way that an infant 'reads' the world,
unable to be surprised because everything, ultimately, is a surprise,
unafraid of every strange turn and dangerous fall, then you will
enjoy the book. If, on the other hand, you're just looking for
the quick kind of entertainment that you usually get in a graphic
novel (even a literary graphic novel), well, then, you probably
won't." |
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Black Ink by Ata Bozaci Gingko Press £29.99 Known as Toast in graffiti circles and Atalier in graphic design circles, Ata Bozaci is recognized as an artist, draftsman, illustrator, and graffiti artist. This Swiss-based dynamo is also known as one of the pioneers of three dimensional graffiti art. The link between these different artistic or design modes is a pictorial language that is based on the reduction of images and ideas to the essential - black ink on white surfaces. In order to preserve the character of his work and to create an object that is more than just a direct documentation of his work, the book was constructed with paper stock similar to that of his sketchbooks and all of his work printed exclusively using black ink on white paper. The book is organized into three main organizing chapters: Graffiti, Sketches, and Illustrations. Graffiti focuses on Styles & Characters, 3-D Styles and Living Letters, Sketches is divided into the categories Animals and People and the last section, Illustrations is devoted to Portraits and the commercial Grafics work that appears under the label Atalier. |
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Modern Dog: 20 Years Of Poster Art (HC) by Mike Strassburger & Robynne Raye Chronicle Books $27.50 Seattle-based designers Michael Strassburger and Robynne Raye are cofounders of Modern Dog, the Seattle-based design studio who's heady mix of cheeky humor and punk rock aesthetics makes them unique among design firms and a hell of a lot of fun. Gathered here for the first time is their groundbreaking work in poster design over the past two decades. Posters for theater, events, music, social issues, and self-promotion run the gamut of approaches and attitudes, but always reflects founders Mike Strassbuger and Robynne Raye's distinctive eye. What's more and unusual in a design monograph their text is laugh-out-loud funny on nearly every page. Interviews with Mike and Robynne by design luminaries James Victore and Rick Valicenti and an essay by critic Steven Heller illuminate the working methods of these creators of iconic and irreverent fin-de-siècle design. |
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Juxtapoz Illustration (HC) by Roger Gastman Gingko Press $29.99 Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine was established by California underground comix artist artist Robert Williams in 1994 to document an exploding art movement emanating largely from the West Coast of the United States. In the intervening years, this movement has gone global and Juxtapoz has rebranded and reimagined itself to better represent a generation of artists intent on working outside the ossified art establishment. In this first volume artists such as MODE 2, KozynDan, Mike Giant, James Jean, Evan Hecox, Grotesk, Alex Pardee, Jeremy Fish and Morning Breath are briefly profiled and then allowed the space to let their work do the talking. While all of the artists featured in this volume have experienced professional success and artistic accolades, they remain accessible to the commercial client and art collector alike representing this phenomenal modern movement perfectly. |
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Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi (HC) by Jon Gibson & Chris McDonnell Universe $40.00 On par with auteurs like Walt Disney, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Art Spiegelman, Ralph Bakshi redefined animation and became a hero to countless generations of fans and filmmakers. If Disney's life and work evoke images of chaste princesses in gleaming castles, Bakshi's is a lady of ill repute camped out in a dim back alley. His name is synonymous with the great tradition of American cartooning. Bakshi is responsible for such memorable films and television shows such as: Fritz the Cat, the first x-rated animated feature film, The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, Spider-man, Heavy Traffic, Cool World, and The Lord of the Rings, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2008.This is the only book chronicling the career of one of the pioneers of animation. Unfiltered highlights Bakshi's early years, as well as each of his groundbreaking films, TV shows, and other projects. Unfiltered contains hundreds of pieces of pre-production art, animation cells, and never-before-seen rough sketches, line drawings, and doodles, all culled from Bakshi's personal archives containing more than thirty years of his life's work. With contributions from animators, producers, and directors who have been influenced by his work, this is a book like no other, about a man like no other. |
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Illustration Magazine #22 Illustration Magazine $15.00 The journal devoted to 20th century vintage pulp, magazine and commercial illustrators. In this issue: - An in-depth feature on the pulp art of Frederick Blakeslee. - A look at the work of magazine illustrator Morton Roberts. - The children book covers of The Merrill Company from the 1940s and 50s. - Plus reviews, event and exhibition guide and more. |
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Dangerous Ink Magazine #3 Dangerous Ink Publishing $6.00 Dangerous Ink is the UK's feature and interviews-based visual arts magazine. In this issue: - An in-depth interviews with Joe Matt, Chet Zar and Bob Doe. - features on Doug Wright, Japanese graphiti and popular cartoons. - Read about the latest issue here. |
| To Top | COMICS: |
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War Is Hell: The First Flight Of The Phantom Eagle #1 of 5 by Garth Ennis & Howard Chaykin Marvel $3.99 Set against the grim backdrop of Word War I, mysterious aviator Karl Kaufmann arrives on the western front dressed outlandishly and at the controls of his own plane. Overconfident and full of romantic ideals, he has come to fight and kill the Hun. But soon Kaufmann confronts staggering loss and witnesses violence on a scale he has never imagined. In the process, he learns the harsh truth of conflict: war is hell |
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Justice League: The New Frontier Special "The special will be a special in that old school way. It will
have a small connecting story and the conceit is that these are
untold events that the government classified back in the early
sixties. There are three stories in the special. The main story
is something I call Chapter X, and it is the story behind the big
Batman/Superman fight hoax referred to in New Frontier.
In the book we only deal with that event as a squib in a magazine
article along with on shot of them brawling. This 22 page story
will tell about what leads up to the two fighting, and how they
choose to resolve it. A host of our Frontier cast are in this story,
from King Faraday and the Suicide Squad through to Wonder Woman
and Hourman. We also get to meet the New Frontier Alfred.
Imagine the thrills!
By the way, for anyone who may be out there rolling their eyes about a Superman
Batman punch up, all I can say is suck it up. I am going to kick the hell out
of those two." |
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Young Liars #1 "The first arc runs 6 issues which is basically half way to my
first 'ending' in issue 12. The first arc deals with what happened
to Sadie when she got shot in the head and the consequences of
that played out as our group of losers travel to Europe to find
a 50 million dollar painting while being pursued by an odd collection
of German hit men who work for Sadie's billionaire, circus freak
fetishising father and who fancy themselves masters of disguise.
(Whew!) Meanwhile, Danny finds his sex life greatly improved, and
other people get shot." |
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Echo #1 Terry Moore discusses Echo at The Pulse - Read the full interview here. |
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Ganges #2 "Mixing complex yet readable storylines with bold experiments
in form and a sense of humor, Huizenga's work is a 'must have'
for anyone interested in the new possibilities of graphic literature.
Or else be left out." |
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Boabab Vol 3 "...the first volume of Baobab does
exactly what it should do: intrigues with its potential and impress
with a bit of finely crafted follow through. It's the one I'm going
to watch most closely." |
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Berlin #15 by Jason Lutes Drawn & Quarterly $3.95 The penultimate episode of Berlin, a historical novel with cinematic sweep, documenting the lives of Weimar Berlin's glamorous and downtrodden denizens as they criss-cross in the cold city streets and change the city's destiny forever. "...a comic of impressive scope... one of the most appealing
things about Berlin is Lutes' love of the comics medium. His story
is full of novel combinations of text and pictures, shuttling (a
la Wings of Desire) between impassive bird's-eye cityscapes and
diary-like internal monologues." "It will be the longest, most sophisticated work of historical
fiction in comics... this book has the density of the best novels." |
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Ropeburn #1 "It's like a shot glass: you have four panels and it's over.
I'm not into long narratives. You really have to get your point
across as quickly, as simply, and as straight forward as possible.
The meaning of the moment right there.
I love the subtlety of the medium. I don't think it works when it's loud; it
works best when it's quiet. I think the best cartoonists have always been really
quiet. If you look at anything by Charles Schulz, his work is very subtle. If
it were music, it would be a sweet or sad tune that was quiet. And that's what
I love about the medium.
It's not as easy as it looks; it's actually hard to learn and very few people
stick with it. You're in the minority if you do it well. I think I'm just competent.
I've reached the point where I can articulate what is in me, whereas five years
ago I was someone who couldn't talk. I didn't have the words to speak." |
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The Boy Who Made Silence #1 "If it seems different than what one would typically expect in
a comic story, that's probably because we tend not to expect a
whole lot from comics. In my opinion, we ought to be expecting
a lot more. I think if we expected more, we'd get more. But for
me, doing comics is a natural place to tell a story since I like
to write and make art. That's where the definition of comics ends
for me: a medium where a series of images and words come together
to tell stories and/or explore ideas. Whatever is expected beyond
that is baggage to get rid of." |
| To Top | ABOUT COMICS: |
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Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix
Revolution (1963-1975) |
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The Comics Journal #289 |
| To Top | MERCHANDISE: |
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Justice League: The New Frontier
Animated Movie DVD "Working in animation I knew the million things that could
go wrong, and I was actually horrified about this happening until
they named the director. And that's when I was able to relax and
just fit into working on it. Because the guy they brought into
to direct it, David Bullock, is a good friend of mine from the
Warner days. And he's probably the only person in the world I would
have picked ahead of myself to direct it. So I couldn't have been
happier." |