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    Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
    fantagraphics 12:08a
    Hans Rickheit documentary

    Hans Rickheit documentary screen capture

    A 16-minute video documentary of Hans Rickheit from 2005 has just recently been posted on Facebook. At his blog, Hans provides background information, apologia, and a photo of a real-life squirrel machine (warning to the squeamish: complete with carcass) given to him by a friend at his Squirrel Machine signing in Cambridge, MA.

    fantagraphics 12:08a
    Daily OCD: 11/9/09

    A piping hot dish of Online Commentary & Diversions:

    • Review: "...[T]his shaggy-haired collection of 15 years’ worth of artful zines and comics [Like a Dog]... reads at times like a history of psychological warfare. [Zak] Sally... tends toward richly dark, semiautobiographical, and tightly etched tales of tension and self-recrimination. Creepy dreams and images of anatomical self-analysis are recurring themes, along with the general sense of transience that marked Sally’s life while relentlessly touring with Low... At times the book... breaks out of that shell to address topics that are usually no lighter in tone though, as with his excellent retelling of Dostoyevski’s imprisonment, they benefit from the change in perspective. The art is equally claustrophobic when not downright disturbing. Revealing and witty, even when mired in darkness." – Publishers Weekly

    • Review: "The Cold Heat material from Jones, Santoro, and Vermilyea is... imaginative and, particularly with Vermilyea at the drawing table, sharply delineated, as is Vermilyea's delightfully sick solo material. Josh Simmons impresses with his blackly comic strips... Tim Hensley kills it as always with the concluding chapters in his Wally Gropius saga, featuring peerlessly communicated body language perhaps the greatest anti-climax in comics history. I think this is some of the tightest material we've seen yet from Sara Edward-Corbett... Lilli Carré is alarmingly good at depicting male lust. Nate Neal's not-so-instant-karma piece in Vol. 16 is explicit and haunting. Dash Shaw is a restless talent, albeit so restless he never seems to settle down even in the middle of any given strip." – Sean T. Collins on Mome Vols. 14, 15 & 16

    • Review: Lene Taylor of the I Read Comics podcast wonders if the humor in Jason's Low Moon exists in an alternate world (beware of spoilers)

    • Review: Google Translate creates poetry out of this Portuguese review of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes at O Recíproco Inverso: "The art that is what Daniel Clowes you do best: people ugly. All the characters are people from day to day, dark circles, old-fashioned clothes, hair loss... out the freaks that appear, like the girl in the form of potato or the dog itself without holes, op.  You see, the Daniel Clowes does not draw badly, he draws very well what he wants to show. That is, ugly people. I will not give star ratings do not pro book, this is very scrotum. Just know that it's cool."

    • Plug: "One hell of a messed-up book. ... Pim & Francie are Columbia's pet subjects — a pair of cute kids who are always stumbling into horrific nightmare scenarios. This isn't quite a collection of stories about them: it's a collection of Columbia's rough and finished materials concerning them that keeps veering toward storyhood, then jerking the steering wheel and plunging over the nearest cliff." — Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

    • Plug: Chris Mautner of Robot 6 rediscovers Zero Zero by way of our 99 Cent Comics sale (issues are selling out fast): "Re-reading this stuff, it really startles me just how good and how ignored this series was and continues to be. I mean, the level of talent in these pages is staggering. Kim Deitch's Search for Smilin' Ed! Dave Cooper's Crumple! Richard Sala's The Chuckling Whatsit! Joe Sacco's Christmas with Karadsic! Not to mention Max Andersson, Skip Williamson, Mack White, Sam Henderson, Michael Kupperman, David Mazzuchelli and so many more. This really was the best anthology of the 90s, bar none."

    • Preview: The Comics Reporter spills the beans on one of our 2010 releases: Drew Weing's Set to Sea

    • Preview: If you want to read about our February 2010 releases in Portuguese, GHQ has you covered

    • Things to see: Look who's popped up in Gabrielle Bell's cartoon recounting of her trip to Minneapolis: none other than Tom Kaczynski and Zak Sally

    • Things to see: Cookies, Li'l Wayne, and inter-mythology love figure in the latest batch of sketchbook scans from Anders Nilsen

    warrenelliscom 12:03a
    The Lost Army

    This, on the other hand, is amazing.

    The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology’s biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

    Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

    "We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus," Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News…

    mass-grave-278x225.widec

    Monday, November 9th, 2009
    warrenelliscom 11:49p
    Moving Away From The Digital City

    (I’m in a foul mood today.)

    All you people with your augmented reality unlocking the digital city outernet designing the sentient city rhetoric and toys? You know what you’re making?

    Street Clippy.

    Now fuck off and make something that’ll do useful work on a phone in a village, instead of something that’ll get you laid in fucking Hoxton. Make something that has meaning outside a major metropolis.

    Oh jesus, I’m sorry, you were working on building the urban digital future playing Foursquare and I disturbed you.

    (I’m off to kick the cats.)

    (Yes, playing Devil’s Advocate a bit. But, see above about foul mood. An article I’m not linking to because they don’t deserve my ire just tipped me over the edge into shoutiness.)

    warrenelliscom 10:55p
    The Point Of Getting Excited

    Matt Jones on his generation of the GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS graphic: the point of it, its brief history, and its new Creative Commons license. All of which just gives me an excuse to post it again:

    3365682994_ba6b7ccc1c_o

    warren_ellis
    5:03p
    The Lost Army

    This, on the other hand, is amazing.

    The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology’s biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

    Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

    "We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus," Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News…

    mass-grave-278x225.widec

    (Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
    bugs_is_icky
    6:07p
    sketchy update!
    mouth

    mussorgsky-colour

    mussorgsky-pen

    rage-girls

    black-rage-girl

    blind-robens


    Vicki Nerino and I have decided to start doing weekly comics on our Uterus Parade blog. From the state of this one, we'll see how long this lasts.

    mustache
    fantagraphics 11:09p
    Love Punishes the Guilty!

    Love Punishes the Guilty! by Tim Hensley

    A Tim Hensley crime comic? Somebody pinch me! Actually this is from The Comics Journal Special Edition, Winter 2004, newly reformatted and colored, for purposes unknown. Read the whole thing at Blog Flume. So great.

    daltonsharp
    5:45p
                                                
    Sach, Lapp, Sharp

    warren_ellis
    3:55p
    The Point Of Getting Excited

    Matt Jones on his generation of the GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS graphic: the point of it, its brief history, and its new Creative Commons license. All of which just gives me an excuse to post it again:

    3365682994_ba6b7ccc1c_o

    (Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
    fantagraphics 10:08p
    Love Punishes the Guilty!

    Love Punishes the Guilty! by Tim Hensley

    A Tim Hensley crime comic? Somebody pinch me! Actually this is from The Comics Journal Special Edition, Winter 2004, newly reformatted and colored, for purposes unknown. Read the whole thing at Blog Flume. So great.

    Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
    jaseh
    8:33a
    Monday, November 9th, 2009
    coppervale
    2:22p
    The Tour Continues - With An Ice Cream Book Party!!!
    Since the SHADOW DRAGONS signing event at the Barnes & Noble Desert Ridge takes place on the night before a certain author's (ahem-hem) tenth thirtieth birthday, we're going to turn it into a Book Signing Ice Cream Party!

    Bring your kids! Bring your books! I'll be signing, sketching, and discussing the proper way to construct an ice cream sundae. Is this a full service author tour, or what?

    **********

    James A. Owen
    The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica: The Shadow Dragons

    Author Event, Children's Event
    Tuesday November 10, 2009 7:00 PM

    Barnes & Noble Desert Ridge
    Desert Ridge Marketplace, 21001 N. Tatum Blvd. Suite 42, Phoenix, AZ 85050, 480-538-8520





    fantagraphics 9:03p
    R. Crumb discussion on The Art of Outrage podcast
    Peter Clothier, host of The Art of Outrage podcast on ArtScene Visual Radio, gathers preeminent R. Crumb experts Todd Hignite (curator of the "R. Crumb's Underground" traveling exhibit), collector Eric Sack, and Rebel Visions writer Patrick Rosenkranz for a roundtable discussion about the Genesis exhibit at the Hammer Museum and other aspects of Crumb's work and context. Listen here.
    fantagraphics 9:03p
    Friedman holds court

    The Kingdom of New York cover illustration by Drew Friedman

    The great Drew Friedman does what he does best on the cover of this upcoming collection of writing and art from the New York Observer. I'm not sure if this piece will be in Too Soon?, our collection of Drew's celebrity portraits coming out in Summer 2010, but it oughta be. Hit Drew's blog for more info and a larger image.

    fantagraphics 7:59p
    fantagraphics 7:59p
    More pics from Al Columbia signing

    Jonas Seaman, whom you may remember from his amazing photos of our Johnny Ryan event last month, is back with a new set of photos from this past weekend's Al Columbia art opening/book signing.

    Al:

    Al Columbia photo by Jonas Seaman

    Jim Woodring:

    Jim Woodring photo by Jonas Seaman

    Al signing an issue of Mome:

    Al Columbia photo by Jonas Seaman

    L to R: Jason Leivian from Floating World Comics in Portland, Al, and comics artists Mike Allred & Matthew Southworth:

    photo by Jonas Seaman

    Many more photos can be seen here; thanks again to Jonas!

    suxdonut
    10:54a
    a lifetime class act

    a lifetime class act
    Originally uploaded by suxdonut
    here's me passed out at 22!


    omg looking at these old pix is tripping my balls off. i can't beleive there was a time before the internet, when i decided everything for myself. and omg i loved SO passionately with no regard for returns.
    comicsreporter 6:00p
    Flipped!: David Welsh Surveys Entertaining College Comedies
    image

    By David P. Welsh

    Del Rey has recently released the first volume of the eagerly anticipated Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, written and illustrated by Masayuki Ishikawa. It's set in an agricultural college in Tokyo, and its protagonist can communicate with bacteria, so essential to many agricultural processes, not to mention life in general. The series gets off to a promising start, blending low comedy and hard science in amusing ways. (Bacteria are also essential to digestion. Let's just leave it at that.) It feels too early in the semester to give Moyasimon a firm grade, but it has inspired me to take a quick run through the abundance of entertaining college comedy that's out there.

    imageGenshiken, written and illustrated by Kio Shimoku, Del Rey: The cast members of this series constitute a club so geeky that they can't even settle on a single pop-culture niche on which to obsess. Their office is packed with manga, anime, games, and toys. Their individual levels of social dysfunction range from apologetic awkwardness to unflinching self-loathing. Fortunately, Shimoku treats them with warmth and specificity that spares the reader a by-the-numbers nerd parody. For me, the heart of the series rests with the unrequited love hardcore otaku Madarame harbors for Kasukabe, the pretty, normal girl who views the club with undisguised contempt but hangs around because her outwardly normal boyfriend is a member. Her prickly disdain for the club in general and Madarame in particular softens into something almost like affection, though the average reader will have reached that point well before her.

    imageHoney and Clover, written and illustrated by Chica Umino, Viz: Unrequited love is central to Umino's shôjo look at art school. There's less romantic geometry here than arrows pointing from yearning hearts to people who either don't reciprocate or don't even recognize that they're adored. But Honey and Clover isn't all mooning; it's more a quirky, funny ensemble piece that does a fine job describing the anxieties of artists in training. These students struggle with inspiration (either its absence or excess), the deprivations of daily life (cheap food, crappy apartments, not enough money for beer), and decidedly uncertain prospects for employment after they graduate -- assuming they graduate at all. Of all the series on this list, I think Honey and Clover does the best job of evoking a specific kind of university experience, halfway between the relative cocoon of high school and the harsher realities of working life.

    imageIchigenme... The First Class Is Civil Law, written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga, 801 Media: When Yoshinaga creates gay romance stories, there's usually a recognizable structure. In the first volume, she meticulously builds a relationship between her protagonists, exploring the interplay of their dispositions and backgrounds and bringing them together. In the second volume, the couple has lots and lots of sex. As a side note, one half of the couple usually likes to cook. This structure is in place in Ichigenme, but Yoshinaga's comics always have at least some level of idiosyncratic charm, and this is one of my favorite of her yaoi titles. Set in law school, it features hard-working Tamiya (he cooks), who's aghast at the laziness and entitlement of his privileged classmates. He's also shocked by his budding feelings for the laziest of the bunch, politician's son Tohdou (he eats). One of the great pleasures of Yoshinaga's yaoi work is the way she incorporates the real world into her romantic narratives. Class, career and essential questions of identity all play a role here, which makes the romance sweeter and smarter.

    imageNodame Cantabile, written and illustrated by Tomoko Ninomiya, Del Rey: For whatever reason, I've spent a lot of my adult life at least partly in the company of classical musicians. And you want to know something? A lot of them are just plain weird. (I know a bassoonist who insists he channels Courtney Love before each performance.) As a result, the decidedly idiosyncratic behavior of Ninomiya's characters seems less extreme to me than carefully chosen. Shinichi Chiaki yearns to study conducting in Europe, but he's terrified of plane travel. Megumi Noda plans to teach music, which is a slightly terrifying prospect given her rather limited life skills. The slovenly Noda dotes on the persnickety Chiaki, who softens towards his gifted, unpredictable classmate. Musicality isn't easy to convey in a comic, particularly orchestral music, but Ninomiya succeeds in communicating her cast's passion for music. The quirkiness threatens to overwhelm other elements at times, but it's a very likable romantic comedy on the whole, and the orchestral background is refreshingly different. Nodame Cantabile is one of those titles that's hugely popular in Japan but hasn't found a sizeable audience over here. I'd love it if more people gave it a try, as it really is charming.

    imageOhikkoshi, written and illustrated by Hiroaki Samura, Dark Horse: I've never quite understood why Ohikkoshi didn't garner more attention from fans of independent films. The titular novella in the collection is structured very much like an amiable art-house flick, with a group of near-college graduates spending a long night drinking, hanging out, and stumbling across funky misadventures. It's a change of pace for Samura, best known for his award-winning samurai epic, Blade of the Immortal, and it's distinct from the rest of the items on this list in that it's most focused on the end of college -- the last threshold between adolescence and adulthood. The cast's night of revelry is akin to a bachelor party, a celebration of a last night of freedom before the ball and chain is affixed. These students believe they have unfinished business that can only be accomplished in the relative freedom of school, and they don't want to miss the opportunity. They're sweet hipsters looking for that special memory that will help them through the slog that's to come.

    imageVenus in Love, written and illustrated by Yuki Nakaji, CMX: This is certainly the most conventional romantic comedy of the lot. Suzuna is eager to start her college life, anticipating the thrilling possibilities of independence and the expanded social opportunities of a co-ed college after an all-girl high school. She settles into her apartment, makes a new friend, and sets her eye on handsome, athletic Fukumi. She soon finds that she has a rival for Fukumi's affections in the form of his best friend, a guy named Eichi. Since manga is the natural habitat of the friendly rival, it's not surprising that Suzuna and Eichi bond over their shared good taste in boys. It is surprising, and pleasantly so, that Nakaji eschews conventional love-triangle antics for a more sedate, slice-of-life approach. She establishes an easy chemistry among her four leads and allows them to bond interpersonally and as a group. Venus in Love isn't an especially ambitious work, but it's very sweet and likeable.

    *****

    David P. Welsh has loved comics since his parents first used Archie and Casper to sedate him during long trips in the family station wagon.

    He's worked as a reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, and later sold out for the glamorous world of public relations. Prior to relocating to The Comics Reporter, he wrote his Flipped column for Comic World News for just over three years. He's written articles on comics for print outlets and a variety of other web sites.

    He lives in West Virginia, which he says has gotten a lot easier since the Starbucks and Barnes & Noble opened up.

    You may e-mail David with questions or commentary You can write to this site about David's columns

    Please bookmark his site, Precocious Curmudgeon.

    *****

    image

    *****
    *****
    suxdonut
    10:15a
    talkin bout a girl named sickie sick
    all sick in shit booooo...oh well its kind of nice to just be immobilized on the couch with 'mySims agents' to dress in gogo boots and solve crime. once i am sick there's not a lick of guilt anywhere to be found. im SICK, geez.

    ians b-d party was great, no social anxiety here! just friends and laughs and cake. ive been recovering ever since hehe.

    today i got a special package, an anime hat for me, clays greenman suit, and a little samurai robe for charlie! he looks powerful and intmidating and kyoooot!

    happy monday every body...
    warrenelliscom 6:28p
    The Mechanic Speaks

    Ariana Osborne, designer of this place, SHIVERING SANDS, etc., talking about POD and the book, because:

    …apparently, there’s a bunch of folks paying close attention to how Shivering Sands does so they can figure out if POD is “worth their time.”

    And I have absolutely no fucking clue what that means, so I’ve just got to talk about it…

    warrenelliscom 6:15p
    warren_ellis
    11:28a
    The Mechanic Speaks

    Ariana Osborne, designer of this place, SHIVERING SANDS, etc., talking about POD and the book, because:

    …apparently, there’s a bunch of folks paying close attention to how Shivering Sands does so they can figure out if POD is “worth their time.”

    And I have absolutely no fucking clue what that means, so I’ve just got to talk about it…

    (Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
    coppervale
    11:04a
    Found it!
    Here's the other UNDER IN THE MERE piece that I'm putting up for sale. There are seven pieces total (with my favorites being the one with the Chinese Theater, and the one with the Questing Beast). Offers can be sent to my email address at coppervale at frontiernet dot net.



    tmcm
    10:06a
    I need a title
    I might be joining up with Dean Haspiel's ACT-I-VATE, the Brooklyn webcartoonist collective. They have one amazing book out and it I'd be surprised if they didn't do more. Dean wants to run a weekly gag cartoon (from the rejected New Yorker cartoons).

    I need a title for the strip like Postage Stamp Funnies. I don't want to use New Yorker Rejects (for a variety of reasons). It's true that they weren't used by the magazine but that isn't the point of the comics.

    "Gag Reflex" is what I have so far. That was the name of a gag strip I drew in college.



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