In today’s news I have a long post up at The Hooded Utilitarian for their roundtable on Wonder Woman No.28. I go on and on about the style of WW artist Harry Peter. The piece ended up being an attempt to figure out how I could describe and discuss “style” in a comic, which isn’t all that easy: partially because of all the moving parts, so to speak, of comics and the vagaries of who did what in a multi-creator comic (including uncredited assistants), as well as a lack of surety on terminology when discussing aspects of the work. But there it is, and there are some great images by Peter.

In other news:

• I’m at work on a short comic inspired by Yves Klein (hopefully for an anthology).
• I’m still trying to figure out how to make scalable ebooks of my comics (I’ll get there, I just need to learn a little more about the epub format and responsive design). When I figure it out I’ll be posting both the comics and some discussion of how I did it.
• I’m hoping to get some shorter reviews up in the near future. I have a lot of comics I’d like to talk about that have gone less (or un) noticed.

Trades and purchases from the show.

Once again I made the trek up to New York City for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival this year. I was armed with a few copies of MadInkBeard No.1 and a bunch of copies of MadInkBeard No.2 hot off the presses.

Either attendance was down or efficiency was up this year. I got to the Armory before noon on Sunday and didn’t have to wait in line at all. There wasn’t a single person buying a ticket at any of the three registers at the entrance. Based on comments from a few people during the day, I’m guess attendance was down (despite MoCCA officially stating the opposite). All told I spent about 5 hours at the show, in the main area. I didn’t end up attending any of the panels (I got distracted and didn’t make it to the one on e-comics publishing that I wanted to attend) or even leave to eat. I just walked around, looked at comics, and talked to people.

In the end the festival was way more successful to me as a social event than for the comics themselves. I gave or traded away all the comics I’d brought with me, and ended up buying only a very few comics (I think I actually paid for 6 comics (2 books, 4 minis) from 4 different tables). I didn’t even spend all the cash I’d brought as my buying allowance for the day. It was the most active I’ve ever been trading comics, which was nice. I think I’m happy enough with my two latest issues that I feel comfortable in asking people to trade. I haven’t actually read everything yet, so most of my comments below are brief/vague.

I also felt like I hit some kind of new level in the socializing department this year. I made it a point to try to talk to people I ran into, and I had a few people I knew were in attendance that I wanted to chat with. Of course, I ran into Marc Sobel at the first table I visited (Fantagraphics in this case, who are publishing Marc’s book on Love & Rockets). I think this is the third show in a row that I’ve run into Marc this way. Ended up spending a lot of time wandering around with him. He’s got different tastes than me, in many respects, so I liked having the alternate perspective on some of the comics we saw. He was also nice enough to give me a comic that was one of the best finds I came home with, a 1997 Xeric grant funded book by Warren Craghead called Speedy. 15 years ago Warren’s work looks pretty different on the surface but when you start reading it, you can see many of his ongoing themes and style coming through.

I was really excited to get a copy of Secret Prison #666 from Pat Aulisio. I’m in the issue, in collaboration with Warren, so there was that extra thrill of seeing my work in print (not something I had printed myself). Our piece looks great. Not sure where or if you can get copies of the issue if you missed it, but I’ll probably be putting the comic up here at some point.

The international contingent usually has interesting work at MoCCA, this year there were a number of Finnish and Swedish artists, maybe some other Scandinavians . I didn’t end up seeing anything too interesting there (except a few comics I already have from Allan Haverholm). I looked through the 2012 edition of the Finnish Comics Annual (I got the 2011 edition at last year’s MoCCA), but I ended up getting my Scandinavian dose of comics from Fantagraphics’ Kolor Klimax anthology, which I ended up buying when I feel in love with this a spread by Jenni Rope.

Crappy picture does not do it justice. Lovely.

Quebecois publisher La Pasteque was also in attendance, I skimmed through most of the many books they had at their table hoping to find a French language gem, but I think maybe their editorial style is not really to my tastes, alas. I also had a conversation with Stephen Robson of Fanfare with the sad but understandable realization that there won’t be any more Times of Botchan volumes forthcoming. On the positive side they showed me the latest Taniguchi book in French, Furari, which was described as a historical Walking Man.

Found the Domino Books table to say hi to Austin. He gave me a copy of his new mini (not really mini, it’s letter size) “Freddy’s Dead” which I think is going to be part of his next book of stories. It’s a more representational and less multi-media work (all pencil I believe) than The Disgusting Room, but there’s no mistaking it’s an Austin English comic. Also at the table Molly Colleen O’Connell with her new book Difficult Loves, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet, though the cover has a figure that looks kind of Venus of Willendorf-esque. My second time around I also got to meet and talk for awhie with Sakura Maku (who did Dark Tomato #1 with Domino).

At Matt Madden and Jessica Abel’s table (the latter of whom has awesome green glasses) I got a copy of the “Tic Tac Toe” minicomic Matt put together. It’s all tic tac toe comics from different people including Matt and Tom Hart, as well the one I did with Marlon Deason. At the Pantheon table they had a preview of Chris Ware’s Building Stories in the form of a long and thin pamphlet. I’m really looking forward to this one, as I’ve found the Building Stories chapters more to my taste than the Rusty Brown chapters. Curious to see how the life-size baby from Kramers Ergot 7 will fit into (what I assume is) a smaller book. The preview itself is sort of a day in the life excerpt, though it jumps around in time a bit. Abrams also had a 64 page preview (about a third of the total) of Frank M Young and David Lasky’s Carter Family book. Marc and I chatted with Kevin Mutch for a little while and he gave me a preview of his (still in pencils) follow-up to Fantastic Life.

Picked up the new Sundays #5 anthology primarily because it had a piece by Warren in it. It’s got a silk screened cover which I found tactily unpleasant while reading. Mostly not to my taste though some interesting pieces by Matt Wiegle (a landscape comic), Conor Stechschulte (who I missed at the Domino table), and Damien Jay (though I found his hard to read, whether that is purposeful is not totally clear). Julie Delporte’s contribution is one of her Letters in the Form of a Book (I have one of them and it is lovely), which unfortunately loses a lot when printed in black and white. Julie’s work is really vibrant in color and it’s a shame that all the English anthology contributions I’ve seen from her are in black and white (including the “Cartoon Crier” that was being given away at the show).

Julie was at the CCS table (in her last week as a “fellow” at the school) with a few color minis (with English translations) that better show off her work. One is excerpts from her journal comic (see her website above) and the other is, I believe, a piece of a longer work that has been partially serialized in her Le Dernier Kilometre series from Colosse. I got to talk to Julie a bit this time and learned that we are both fans of the Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint (she had a copy of his new book which I didn’t even know about). At the table with Julie was CCS student Laurel Lynn Leake. I traded for her minicomic “All Rumors are True” which was a semester project using a fairy tale or myth (I’m pretty sure that’s what she told me). It’s about a drag queen who gets involved with an art group that makes erotic videos based on myths. Formally it seems to be written like a television news story, with interesting use of text, sometimes as whole panels with abstract backgrounds, other times written largely over the images, all working like a kind of audio voiceover.

Comics poetry (poetry comics) also made a few appearances at the show. Alexander Rothman and Kimball Anderson (that link seems to be all older work) both use the terms for their work. Alexander traded with me for his mini “Reeling” which is the strongest piece I’ve seen from him, both in the writing/narrative and the visuals/drawing (doesn’t look like it’s made it online yet either in excerpts or to buy). Kimball is going to be in that Boston show I’ve mentioned (along with Warren and Julie and others), but I didn’t know he was going to be at this show, so I was surprised to see his name as I was browsing tables. We also traded some comics, his “Not We, Not I, But: a science fiction poem comic” and “Inside”. Only later did I wonder if these guys knew each other, and that I should have found out and introduced them, if not. Besides the comics/poetry usage their work shares a certain similarity.

One new artist I found as I browsed around was Neil Dvorak (warning: Flash site). His comics are all letter sized cream colored paper printed with black. Very uniform in appearance. His drawing style looks very photo referenced, with figures that remind me of Shannon Gerard’s. It’s a very clean, thin-line style with no tone/shading and very little in the way of spot blacks. His comics are short narratives, sometimes essay-istic or poetic, depending on the piece. They all appear to be online as pdfs: “So have you No.1″ and “Easy Intro” are probably the best ones.

Sophie Yanow was working the Fantagraphics table and took a moment to talk with me a little. I was out of comics by then, but she let me do a delayed trade (I mailed her my side of the trade) for In Situ No.2 her new issue from Colosse (here’s info on issue 1). In Situ are short journal comics, what I like best about them is the way Sophie occasionally veers into abstraction.

Overall, I found most of the tables not worth my attention: lots of genre stuff, lots of people who probably want to be working for Marvel/DC, lots of cutesy stuff. One thing I realized as I walked around was how important covers are in such a situation. To a certain extent you can judge a book by its cover, especially when your walking around such a large room, you kind of have to. That’s partially why I’ve been putting comics on my covers. Both issues of MadInkBeard feature cover comics that are created from panels I used inside the issue. I think they give a decent indication of what one will find inside.

So that mostly sums it up. Great show? No. Good time? Yes. Lots of super exciting comics discoveries? No. The vast majority of stuff I got was from people I already knew (or knew of). Oh well, there’s always BCGF (or SPX if I make it down).

Sources:

Apologies for poor scans/photos and some lack of citation information. Some of these were only available online and some were in a format that was difficult/impossible for me to scan well.

1. Fumetti from Help! magazine, edited by Harvey Kurtzman. (Don’t know date or issue) Scan from http://ethunter1.blogspot.com/2009/03/kurtzmans-fumetti_28.html
2. Page from Star Trek fotonovel. Scan from http://bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com/2009/05/star-trek-fotonovel.html
3. Roman-photo page from Nous Deux (older). (specifics unknown)
4. Roman-photo page from Nous Deux (newer). (specifics unknown)
5. Page 66-67 from Plissart, Marie-Francoise. Droit de Regards (1985). Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2010. Translated into English as: Rights of Inspection. Monacelli Press, 1999.
6. Page from Marker, Chris. La Jetée: ciné-roman. New York: Zone Books, 1992.
7. Page from ibid.
8. Page from Anderson, Elliot; Lawrence Levy; Michael Vollan. “Going to Heave: a photo-narrative.” TriQuarterly 37 (1976).
9. Page from ibid.
10. Page from Turbeville, Deborah. Past Imperfect. Steidl, 2009. More on Turbeville at this site.
11. Bourdin, Guy. Charles Jourdan advertisement. Paris Vogue (Sep 1973). Scans from http://www.ciaovogue.com/2012/03/paris-vogue-september-1973.html
12. Page from Bourdin, Guy. Photo story. Paris Vogue (Aug 1974). Scans from http:// www.ciaovogue.com/2012/03/august-1974-paris-vogue.html
13. Page from ibid.
14. Page 133 from Teulé, Jean. Gens de France et d’Ailleurs (1988, 1993). Ego Comme X, 2005.
15. Page 96 from Guibert, Emmanuel; Didier Lefèvre; Frédéric Lemercier. The Photographer. First Second, 2009.
16. Page 116-7 from Schuiten, Francois; Benoit Peeters; Marie-Françoise Plissart. L’Enfant Penchée. Casterman, 1996.

MadInkBeard No.2
April 2012
32 p., 6.5″ x 10.25″
full color
cardstock cover

First Edition of 50 copies

This is the second issue of my quarterly series of comics. This issue is in the classic pamphlet format printed by the fine folks at RA Comics Direct.

Contents:

• 26 pages of photocomics I made over the past couple months. 5 single page comics, 2 two page comics, 1 five page comic, 1 eight page comic, and 1 four page comic.
• An 8 page essay about photocomics, including a bibliography of suggested reading.
• Also see: a supplemental webpage of example images for the essay.

$5 plus postage.

Here are a few sample pages:

-My first 4-Panel strip for Carousel is now up at the Tumblr set up for sharing those strips. There is a second complementary strip appearing in the next issue (and I assume at some point on that site).

-I have a collaborative comic with Warren Craghead in the upcoming Secret Prison #666, which should be debuting at MoCCA. It’s not too late to help fund their secondary Kickstarter goal of having extra copies to take to TCAF and CAKE. If you’re not going to be at any of those events, you can get a copy in exchange for support. Warren’s and my comic is still in-progress (we’re almost done!), but it is turning out really interesting. It’s a two page tabloid spread (as will be all the comics in the issue) inspired by Project Runway.

-Rob Clough reviewed “Untitled (Aug 2011)” and “No Way Constant” over at his High-Low blog. He calls “Untitled”: “one of [my] most successful comics to date.” Copies are still available. Rob also reviews a few comics by Simon Moreton who you may recall from the “30 Days of Comics” this year or his page in MadInkBeard No.1.

-MadInkBeard No.2, the photocomics issue, is still in the works. The comics are done; I just need to finish the essay. I’m still hoping to have copies to take to MoCCA (I’m planning on being there Sunday, walking around), but the essay writing has been slow going (especially since I started focusing on the Secret Prison comic). MadInkBeard No.1 is still available, though I’ll probably be offering a special price on numbers 1 and 2 when I have the latter available.

-Details are sparse as of yet, but it looks like I’m going to be participating in a gallery show in Boston this October about comics as poetry. There will be a book, too, featuring a number of excellent artists. More details as that gets closer.

It’s not as thought out or edited a post as I’d like to make, but the idea came to me late. Hopefully any ridiculous assertions, leaps of logic, or obviousness will be forgiven.

1) MadInkBeard No. 1 actually sold some copies. I’ve already gone through half of the 50 copy print run. That means I’ve drawn 25 comics on the back of those copies. Whew. Maybe I’ll post some of those at a future date.

2) I have a post up tomorrow (up now, here) for the Locas Roundtable at The Hooded Utilitarian. For reasons unknown, I wrote about how Locas is like (and not like) superhero comics.

3) I’ve read a lot, comics and not. I can heartily and thoroughly recommend to everyone that you buy this version of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo it is amazing on every level (the content, the printing, the design, the physicality of the book and paper). I’m slowly savoring it a few prints at a time. I’ve also recently discovered the work of Henri Rivière. Here’s a poorly designed website about him in French. Click on the second group of links in the sidebar to see his print series. This facsimile volume of his Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower is quite nice (yes, it is a reference to Hokusai).

4) Also I’m re-rereading Gaddis’ The Recognitions, which is one of my favorite novels.

5) MadInkBeard No. 2 is in process and will be of/about photo-comics. I think I’m good on content as far as the comics I’ve made, but I still need to write the essay I want to include in the issue. I’ve read a bunch of photo-comics and related photo books lately, so I hopefully I can get that done in time for MoCCA.

6) Speaking of MoCCA, Secret Prison #666 should be debuting there. The issue will be all comics made via the collaboration of two artists (not in a “one writes, the other draws” way). I’ll be collaborating with Warren Craghead on two pages. We still need to work that out. In the meantime you can support the printing of the issue over at Kickstarter.

7) Finally, here’s a photo-comic that’ll probably be in issue no. 2. I just finished it now. Click on it for a larger view.

Panel 1 from my 4 panel strip

You can read the full strip here.

The “hybrid literary and arts” magazine Carousel just released it’s 28th issue. Among short stories, poetry, illustrations, and interviews, there is a whole section of 4 panel comics by a variety of artists, including Mark Laliberte (who is also the editor), Andrei Molotiu, Ethan Rilly, Michael DeForge, and myself (to name those who might be familiar to readers of this site). There will be a similar section (same artists) in the next issue, too.

My strip is a weird photo/drawing hybrid that is a homage to my grandparents. The image above is one of the panels. Seeing it now I wish I had hand lettered the strip and use thinner borders.

You should be able to order a copy through the magazine’s website.

p.s. It was also written under the influence of Gertrude Stein as I was reading The Making of Americans at the time I wrote the strips.

MadInkBeard No.1
January 2012
28 p., 6.5″ x 10.25″
full color
cardstock cover

First Edition of 50 copies
Each with a unique hand drawn 2 panel comic on the back cover

This is the first issue of what I hope to be a quarterly series of my comics (and, in future issues, writing). This issue is in the classic pamphlet format printed by the fine folks at RA Comics Direct.

Contents:

• 23 pages of comics from my “30 Days of Comics” project from November 2011. All use appropriated text from Thoreau’s Journal.
• 3 pages of “30 Days of Comics” works from Warren Craghead III, Allan Haverholm, and Simon Moreton (one page each).
• A new comic created for the cover out of 4 panels from comics on the inside of the issue.
• Each copy from the first edition will include a unique comic drawn on the back of the issue. I’ll be making these as I go, each using text from Thoreau’s Journal dated the same day as I draw the comic.

Reviews:
“MadInkBeard #1 is not for the casual comic book reader” -Grant Thomas at Poopsheet Foundation

$5 plus postage.

Here are a few sample pages:

Not 2011, but damn you should read this, because it was my favorite self-contained comic of the year:

Par Les Sillons by Vincent Fortemps (Fremok, 2009): I’m not sure how I stumbled upon this book, maybe it was just from browsing the publisher’s website and looking at the samples, but I am sure glad I did find it. This is an amazing work, one of my favorite comics ever, let alone, this year. A beautiful, silent narrative told in images that look to be part etching, part monoprint, smeared and scratched with a wonderful gray glow to them (check out the samples at the link above). I’ll write a full post on this, one of these days.

New editions/printings for 2011:

Journal v.1-4 by Fabrice Neaud (Ego Comme X, 1996-2002, new editions/printing (in 3 books) 2011): I don’t think I could overhype this as one of the (the?) best autobiographical comics ever made. Neaud is a superb draughtsmen who can move from near photorealist figures and settings into expressive and metaphorical images that add a powerful depth to the work. As a writer of his own life, he is fairly brutal and incisive. This is not the autobiography of current/historical events (a la Maus/Persepolis), of the miniscule day (American Elf), nor of the “relationship comics” variety (Brown’s trilogy, Blankets). Rather Neaud takes on love, friendship, art, and perhaps most importantly the life of a gay man in a heterosexual society. It’s a depressing sign for comics in English that this still hasn’t been translated/published, but it’s also not totally surprising, as Neaud does not shy away from graphic images of his own sexual activity and fantasy. And while the graphic heterosexuality (focused on women’s bodies, of course) of many previous/contemporary cartoonists is printed and praised, the same attention to homosexual male sexuality seems to be the province of ghettoized comics (including yaoi manga). According to a recent interview with Loic Néhou of Ego Comme X there are some interested publishers for an English edition, but if those deals fail to come to fruition Ego Comme X will do a print-on-demand English version.

Actually New in 2011:

Unspent Love, or Things I Wish I Told You by Shannon Gerard (Conundrum, 2011): This came out late in the year to, so far, little fanfare, but I really enjoyed rereading the pieces collected here (most (all?) of which appeared online at Top Shelf 2.0). Each section in the book is a textual monologue accompanied by images of a figure or two over short stretches of time. The connection between the text and the figures (characters) is often ambiguous, but the interaction of the two makes for some fine comics.

Color Engineering by Yuichi Yokoyama (Picturebox, 2011): This is a wonderful, if occasionally frustrating, read. Way stronger and more visually dynamic book than Yokoyama’s Garden, also released this year (but which I found a little dull). Color Engineering is often closer to an abstract comic than to anything else. It’s one of the few comics I’ve read where almost every page seemed to be part of a two-page spread rather than just its own page.

New parts of ongoing serials… also those artists that make the list almost every year:

“Love Bunglers” by Jaime Hernandez in Love & Rockets: New Stories #4 (Fantagraphics, 2011): Assuming this will be one place where my list will cross-over with a lot of other people’s (and it has, as of this writing, ditto for my next selection). A really powerful entry (one of the best) in Hernandez’s ongoing serial. You probably don’t need me to say anything about this, either you already read it or you don’t care. This one kind of breaks the list’s rule, since I’m really only a fan of the Jaime portion of the volume, but it feels weird to but this in the short story section since it doesn’t really stand alone.

Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga (Fantagraphics, 2011): No one does insomnia like Kevin Huizenga. He makes the everyday into a formal adventure of comics, and the way he plays with time is amazing. This is another strong issue of what appears to be the last of the Ignatz line. (Not really a book, but too high-end to be considered a minicomic.)

Not new, but both pretty striking works:

Vent Frais Vent du Matin by Nadia Raviscioni (Atrabile, 2010): This comic is a bit oblique at times, with some repeating motifs that I’m not sure what to make of them, but it is an expressive, non-linear work that is quite unique. I can’t say it better than Matthias Wivel did at TCJ last year (where I heard of the book).

World Trade Angels by Fabrice Colin and Laurent Cilluffo (Denoel, 2006): I heard of this book a long time ago from a Bart Beaty post at The Comics Reporter (sadly all the images appear to have disappeared from that post), and this year I finally tracked down a copy. I can only echo what Beaty said in that post, and marvel that no one has picked this up for English translation.