The Wood Paneled Basement

A Great Christmas Present

2011-12-25T17:41:00.001-08:00

I got a great Christmas present last night from my wife, Georgene. She knitted me a stocking based on the one in the "covered" Andy Panda cover I did for our Christmas card last year. It's even complete with a hole at the bottom of it (although it's secretly patched). Now I just need the basket and a Batchelder fireplace.

Black Eye

2011-05-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

I just got my contributor copy of Black Eye in the mail today. It's a black humor anthology that I did a 2 page story in called, How I Would Survive the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. Since the story is so short, I can't show too much of it, but here are a couple of panels.

The book has a great line-up of artists who contributed. You can read more about it here. You can also read about a Canadian customs agent confiscating it here.

Below are my two dogs, Idget (left) and Toaster (right). Both are notorious for eating disgusting things.

A Color Test

2011-04-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a graphic novel for kids (but hopefully adults will like it too) and color was a big issue for me. My drawing tends to be pretty organic and computer coloring didn't feel quite right. That led me to painting it with water color. The danger there is getting too involved with painting and rendering every leaf on a tree. I think if I can keep it simple, it might work.

Monsters Project

2010-11-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

I've got a painting for sale as a part of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's Monster Project fundraiser on Ebay. It's opening bid is only 30 bucks and the frame cost more than that. The image that they have appears to be a photo taken while the painting was in the frame. The one above is a lot closer to what the real thing looks for. Be sure to check their other auctions. There are lots of good art there and the money goes to a very good cause.

Breasts in Japan

2010-10-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Man who Loved Breasts has been translated into Japanese and is available as a digital download through Toge no Jizo. The download includes everything that was in the english print version which include the title story, George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist, A 21st Century Cartoonist in King Arthur's Court, as well as end pages. It's basically the exact same 32 page comic, but in Japanese and as a pdf or ePub file. It costs 150 yen, which is roughly a $1.80. It's bound to be one of the stranger things on your Ipad.

Toge no Jizo is in it's early stages of translating comics into Japanese, but you can also download the work of Dutch artist Erik Kriek. Go ahead and bookmark their page to check out what may be next.

I'm having a hard time getting over how cool it is to see one of my comics translated into Japanese.

Gomorrah

2010-09-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend The Criterion Collection curated a film festival for this year's All Tomorrow's Parties in New York. Comic artists were asked to create posters for the different movies and I did the one above for Gomorrah. Criterion art director Eric Skillman did the finishing touches to make it look like an old Gold Key comic.

West Coast Avengers

2010-09-01T19:58:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid (or teenager), the West Coast Avengers was a comic that I regularly bought, but hated. This was a strange behavior that I had back then. I don't know if it was out of a Marvel fanboy brainwashing or if the problem was that I wanted to buy more comics a month than good ones were produced. Regardless, I bought Englehart and Milgrom's West Coast Avengers month after month hoping that it would get better and it never did.

At Comic Con last July, I was stunned to see my pal Anthony Vukojevich digging these out of quarter bins. Evidently, for him, these comics are transcendently bad and hugely entertaining. On a weird level I can see his point, Wonder Man's horrendous mullet, his costume, Englehart ending every sentence that is not a question with an exclamation point, the horrible art of Al Milgrom somewhat polished by Joe Sinnott, Iron Man's Transformer armor, etc. They are horrible on almost every conceivable level. They are the acme of bad. He's been enjoying the comic so much that he has dedicated a blog to some of his favorite panels. Check it out and maybe you can enjoy it like he can. I still don't have enough distance.

Bound and Gagged at Secret Headquarters this Friday

2010-08-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'll have a drawing in the Bound and Gagged show at Secret Headquarters this Friday night. It's got a great line up of artists doing gag cartoons. Plus there will be a book of the gags for 10 bucks.

Here's a list of those involved:

Andrice Arp, Marc Bell, Elijah J. Brubaker, Shawn Cheng, Chris C. Cilla, Michael DeForge, Kim Deitch, J. T. Dockery, Theo Ellsworth, Austin English, Eamon Espey, Robert Goodin, Julia Gfrörer, Levon Jihanian, Juliacks, Kaz, David King, Tom Neely, Anders Nilsen, Scot Nobles, Jason Overby, John Porcellino, Jesse Reklaw, Tim Root, Zak Sally, Gabby Schulz, Josh Simmons, Ryan Standfest, Kaz Strzepek, Matthew Thurber, Noah Van Sciver, Dylan Williams, Chris Wright and MORE!?*

Impressive!

*photo stolen from Tom Neely's blog*

Outtake

2010-07-18T22:26:00.001-07:00

My Carl Jung story in the current issue of Mome was originally 20 pages instead of 19. This page, which was to go between pages 9 and 10, was thought to be a bit of a tangent from the story when I showed my roughs to friends. It was a hard one to let go, because I liked how the drawing was coming together, but sometimes that's what needs to happen.

When I roughed the story out, I used photos from the internet and Google maps for reference on the Cathedral and surrounding buildings. Between roughing it and finishing it, I squeezed a trip to Basel onto a Europe trip for more research. The only thing I would have changed was the first panel of this page. That is not Jung's school. I'm not sure where I got that from, but I was wrong. It turns out it didn't matter, since the page was cut.

Basel is a great city with a really good comic shop called Comix Shop (imagine that).

**Comic-Con News**

For the first time in a long time, I won't have a table in the small press area of Comic Con this year. I applied, but was rejected and wasn't given a reason why. So I'll be there only as a spectator on Friday and Saturday, shopping and saying hi to friends. It could be a relaxing and fun experience, but I'm not sure that relaxing and Comic Con go together.

The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung

2010-07-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

I received a copy of Mome 19 in the mail today that has my new story, The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung in it. I'm very happy with the results which almost never happens with me. For once I don't wish I could redraw the entire thing. It's 19 pages and is a story about Jung's childhood, taken from his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. I worked on it on and off for over 4 years and even went to Basel, Switzerland to try and do some research. Here are the first 7 pages from the story:

Holiday Weekend

2010-07-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

Most people spend their Fourth of July holiday going to the beach, pool, or at least being outside. I spent mine drawing a panel for a comic that does not exist for no particular reason.

Covered Art Show

2010-03-07T22:25:00.000-08:00

Last night was the opening of the Covered art show at Secret Headquarters and it was a great time. The place was packed on a rainy night and there were fantastic covers hanging on just about every available bit of wall space. To check out the show yourself (or even buy something) you can go here. As the curator, I spent the last few months getting e-mails with these amazing covers sent to me. It was exciting every time I heard my little e-mail alert sound. I let out more than one audible "Holy shit!" over that time. Even after seeing scans for a month ahead of time, I still marveled at the actual covers on the wall. There are some colors and details that a scan just can't capture. If you live or are visiting Los Angeles any time this month, I would try to check it out.

Andrew Brandou and Coop, doing... I'm not sure what.

Finished Jung

2010-01-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

After a working on this story for a few years I have finally The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung to the publisher. It will be printed in either Mome 19 or 20, which I'm guessing will come out in the second half of this year sometime. Here are two pages that I featured in rough form; now in their final version.

Uncle Scrooge Adventures 3 Covered

2010-01-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

A little over a week ago I was commissioned to draw another Disney Ducks cover and this is the result. I would put it on my other blog,Covered, but I feel a little self-conscious having done them a few times already. It's a lot of fun drawing them this way and I liked the results, so I put it here.

Tonight I'm inking another cover for the Covered art show that will be opening at Secret Headquarters in March. It involves another famous cartoon animal and I'm excited to get it finished.

Oh yeah. The original is by Daan Jippes; Gladstone 1988.

The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung

2010-01-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

Since I've been on hiatus from my day job in animation, I've been able to be a full-time comic artist. The first priority for me was to finish my 19 page The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung. I've been working on this off and on for years now (maybe 5) and am about a week away from finishing it. The terrible photo above are of some out of sequence finished pages hanging up in my closet/office. It's good to have them constantly hanging up. Some pages grow better over time, others grow worse. The worse ones will get reinked.

Mum

2009-12-26T19:45:00.001-08:00

I did my first record cover over the spring and although it came out in August, I just got some copies a couple of days ago. It's a 7" done for Pure Groove record store in London and IHeartComix here in L.A. From what I've read, only 300 were made for the store (can that be right?). If you feel so inclined, you can order one here.

Taking Lessons from Johnny Craig

2009-12-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

This is a panel that I copied from Iron Man 14, 1969.

Coffee Shop Drawings

2009-10-04T18:30:00.001-07:00

Over the last year, I've been filling up a sketchbook with drawings I do at coffee shops. That wasn't a plan, but has just sort of happened. I've posted some of the pages on my Flickr page.

Getting Ready for Comic-Con

2009-07-19T23:11:00.001-07:00

I've been spending the last few days preparing for Comic-Con and today I was doing the last touches on some new sketchbooks / journals that I'm going to premiere there. They are all printed on various kinds of wood veneer, similar to the postcards that I have been making. I think they would make great convention sketchbooks. I'll be at table M8 in the small press area. For those not going to the show, I have most of them at my Etsy store.

Awesomer

2009-06-09T21:13:00.001-07:00

I have a 2 page comic story that I drew and Jon Adams wrote in the new anthology, Awesome 2: Awesomer. I haven't had a chance to see a copy of the book yet, but it looks like it has a great line-up of artists. For a sneak peek at some pages, check this out.

More Roughs

2009-06-08T09:49:00.001-07:00

Here are some roughs for another comic I've been working on about a crisis in the life of Carl Jung when he was a kid. I've been working on this 24 page story for I think 3 years now. I did the Man Who Loved Breasts comic during this time as well as numerous other short stories. My goal was to get it finally roughed out by July. Hopefully I can do it and get to doing some final pages.

Roughing It

2009-05-02T19:47:00.001-07:00

In my free time, I've been working on an all ages comic that will probably not see the light of day for a few years. I think the final book will be about 40 pages or so and will have painted color, so it should take me awhile. For now, I'm roughing it out and really enjoying it. Here are a couple of pages that I thought I would share.

Restless and Rejected

2009-04-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I started another blog called, Covered which features artists redrawing comic covers in their own style. The blog has gained enough popularity that I am able to post a cover a day, Monday through Friday. In fact, I get so many submissions, I have had to reject some, including my own. These are both attempts to cover Dell's Four Color 1146 (Restless Gun), that I never did get quite right. The version up top was the second version and I think better of the two, but still seems a little stiff and timid. I thought I would try it again, but instead turned to a Donald Duck issue.

BTW, this issue of Four Color features some handsome art by Johnny Quest's creator Doug Wildey.

New Work at Comic Art Collective

2009-03-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

I've been putting some new work for sale at Comic Art Collective. Most of it is from my Monster Show that was at Secret Headquarters in February. I'll also be adding a little more work from The Man Who Loved Breasts over the weekend.

The Monster Show

2009-01-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

I have a solo show at Secret Headquarters called The Monster Show that will feature 14 new paintings/drawings. Opening reception is Feb. 6, from 8 - 10 pm and the show will be up until Feb. 27th. For those not in the Los Angeles area, Secret Headquarters will have the paintings online for purchase as well. I'll try to post a link once they go up.

Secret Headquarters
3817 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90026
(323)666 2228

The Forest

2008-12-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

This is a painting I did for a charity auction at Fox. I thought I'd share it here.

Felt Club!

2008-11-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

I'll be at Felt Club tomorrow. Where else can you get a print by Jordan Crane, some hand printed stickers by Steve Weissman, a plywood sketchbook by me, and a home made puppet? Felt Club would be the only place. Great place for early Christmas shopping; especially for weirdos.

Alternate Ending

2008-11-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

I've never before drawn two endings to a comic story and I doubt I ever will again, but in the case of The Man Who Loved Breasts, I did. One of my Top Shelf editors, Chris Staros, wasn't thrilled with the ending I had roughed out when I showed him the story. I agreed that it could possibly be stronger, but I was at a loss as to how to do it. I inked it with the rest of the story and showed it to Chris again, and again it was bothering him. I gave it some thought and even though I felt it was funny, I realized it was an ending to a different story. The story I had was about a guy and his love of boobs, not that one man's heaven is a woman's hell. With that realization in mind, I came up with an ending that stayed consistent with the theme of the story and I'm happier for it. I still like the old ending for what it was, so I'm presenting it here.

For those who are interested, I've been putting the original art of this comic for sale at ComicArtCollective.com, including these pages.

I Went to a Local Comic Convention Today...

2008-10-12T22:29:00.001-07:00

and bought this for a buck. Ditko is an odd dude.

Isn't it a little early for this?

2008-10-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

Please forgive me, I know it's only October, but I've just designed a Christmas (or holiday) postcard. It's obviously not religion specific and can be given to anybody. The reason I'm posting this so early is that if anybody wants to use these to send out to pals, they'll need to order them pretty soon so that they have time to receive them and send them out. They're going to be available in about a week or so and are $4 for one or $30 for a dozen. If you want more than a dozen, e-mail me and I'll see about discounting them further. They'll be printed on poplar wood which is light with a subtle grain. Here's a link for ordering.

Signing this Thursday at Meltdown in Los Angeles

2008-09-27T17:06:00.001-07:00

The famous Meltdown Comics in Hollywood has been kind enough to host a small release party / signing this Thursday for The Man Who Loved Breasts. I should also have my mini comics, postcards, and issues of Mome there as well. It all starts at 7 and will probably go to around 10, when Meltdown closes.

I know it's the night of the Palin / Biden debate, but you can catch that later on the web somewhere.

The Man Who Loved Breasts

2008-08-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

The Man Who Loved Breasts is currently in the Diamond distributor catalog for an October release. Top Shelf has a 6 page preview of the title story up on their website. The pages are my roughs, but I think they may get switched out for the final version any day now. I suppose it might be interesting to see my grammatical errors, how poorly I spell, and also how I can't seem to draw my protagonist consistently. I think I corrected these in the final version. Anyway, I'm digressing...

I'm mentioning this now, because if you don't think your local comic shop will carry my comic, this is a good time to tell them that you want to get it. This is when they are ordering for October releases. Tell them you want the comic and tell them they need to carry it. Tell them that tits sell, especially to comic readers, and that it can't miss. Tell them that amputee fetishist comics are going to be the biggest thing since mutants. Tell them anything. I just don't want it to tank.

Typhon is here

2008-08-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

I received my copy of "Dirty" Danny Hellman's new comic anthology, Typhon, today. I did a one page story I'm pretty pleased with called: Pentaeuch Funnies Starring Abraham. The book also has some stories by R. Sikoryak, Rich Tommaso, Pshaw, Derek Ballard, and a bunch of artists I'm not too familiar with. I look forward to reading this almost 200 page monster to discover some new folks. More info about it here.

Commission

2008-08-06T21:56:00.001-07:00

At San Diego, a fellow asked if I did commissions. I'd never been asked before, but thought it might be fun. He wanted me to draw an animal. After being sick my first week after the show, I got to work this week. I decided to draw the monkey and the crocodile from the fable I drew a few years ago. This scene is of the two of them entering the river for a fateful trip at the end of the story. I was right at San Diego; it was fun. I hope you like the drawing, Joshua. It's in the mail.

New Postcards

2008-08-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

I've just added my 2 latest postcards to my online store. These debuted at San Diego a couple of weeks ago. Both cards are available here.

San Diego Comic Con: Part 2 Wonder Women

2008-08-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

I love looking through old comics at San Diego. The comic dealers have been getting squeezed out over the years for Hollywood, the Suicide Girls, and medieval armor manufacturers, but there are still some great finds out there. I came across two fantastic Wonder Woman comics while digging through the long boxes. The first one is a cover that I believe I first saw on The Comics Reporter and immediately fell in love with it. The image on the cover pretty much says it all. Wonder Woman is in a bridal gown holding the arm of a monster in a tux. Pretty clear. However, in case you are a little slow, we've got an Amazon thinking "Great Hera! Wonder Woman still doesn't realize she's marrying a monster!" Ok, she's marrying a monster. Got it. However, for the confused, we've got the comic's title "I Married a Monster!" plastered on the cover. Then at the top, in case you haven't yet realized who Wonder Woman might be marrying, we've got "Introducing... Mr. Monster!". Fabulous. The story is good too. Mr. Monster is a real dick and Wonder Woman can't help but to fall in love with the guy. I'd love to do a sequel to this.

The second issue I passed on buying, but I still love the cover. There's Wonder Woman, dangling from a ridiculously phallic building, while Giant Wonder Woman gives it a hug. Then, the finest touch of "Hate you" scrawled by some young girl (I hope) onto Giant Wonder Woman's chest. Add some demon eyes colored in for good measure and you have one of the best comic covers of all time. Thank you Comic Con.

San Diego Comic Con: Part 1

2008-07-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

My sisters birthday fell over Comic Con this year and for her birthday she wanted photos of people dressed up as the Joker and one of a sexy Joker. Kelly, these are for you. Happy birthday.

and a sexy Joker:

Rob and Cathy: At the Con

2008-06-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, Cathy Malkasian, my wife Georgene, and I shared a hotel room for Comic Con in San Diego. I thought of this comic then and in typical fashion, took 2 years to get around to drawing it.

That is a pretty accurate drawing of how Cathy looks naked, but these days she's sporting a brazilian.

New Postcards!

2008-06-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've designed some new postcards. You can order them and read more about them on my website.

MoCCA 2008

2008-06-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

I have returned from the MoCCA show in New York where I experienced some weather that I have not felt in a long time. Living in Los Angeles, I’m used to heat (but still don’t like it), but the humidity in New York last weekend was oppressive. On Sunday we got some rain, but instead of bringing relief, it only brought more misery. That said, I still had a great time in NYC. It’s hard not to.

The Indie Spinner Rack podcasting table.

Georgene and I managed to get some sleep on this trip, so we had the energy to go out and have some fun at night. Saturday night, the Indie Spinner Rack threw a party at the bar M-15. We had the opportunity to talk with Charlito and Mr. Phil, Monica Gallagher and boyfriend Dennis, Jesse Post, Rob Venditti, Keith Knight, Joey Weiser, and a young lady who is a cartoonist and Forbidden Planet employee whose name I can’t remember (sorry, ask Mr. Venditti about how good I am at remembering people).

Wife Georgene, Monica Gallagher, and Monica's Boyfriend Dennis at M-15.

After spending a hundred bucks on the Gary Panter’s new 2 volume monster book set the week before, I didn’t have much dough to pick up new stuff at the show. However, there were a few inexpensive things that I knew I wanted to get and I was also hoping for some new discoveries while browsing. My first purchase was issues 2 and 3 of Fred Chao’s by AdHouse Books. Fred just got a ton of Eisner nominations, but it’s still been difficult to find his comics at my local shops. His comic is a light-hearted action comic about a half-Asian, Chinatown busboy, who struggles with his girlfriend to make ends meet with his girlfriend. He finds himself in the middle of odd adventures involving giant monsters and irate restaurant employees. Its combination of love story, personal problems, and adventure is reminiscent of early Spider-man comics. It would have broad mainstream appeal, if the comics mainstream weren’t filled with insular superhero comics.

A mini-comic I wanted pick up is How To Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden. This recounts Sarah’s trip to Israel as she tries to understand the un-understandable situation over there. Her viewpoint portrays Israel more as oppressor than victim, but her likable tour guide offers an Israeli point of view without going to extremes. At their worst, mini comics can be crudely drawn, poorly conceived stories. But How to Understand Israel is a well thought out, satisfying read that I’m pretty sure will be collected by a mainstream book publisher when it is completed. It fits very well in the “socially relevant memoir” genre (Maus, Fun Home, Blue Pills, Persepolis, etc…) that book publishers have been going ape shit over for a few years now. I hope that when it is collected, it will be in color, which will help anchor Sarah’s clear line drawing style, much like it does for Herge, Chris Ware, or Rutu Modan.

The best thing about these shows are the new discoveries. My favorite purchase of the weekend was made within the last half hour of the show. Rui Tenreiro’s Høytiden is in Norwegian, but comes with an English translation sheet. The book reminds me a bit of medieval Ingmar Bergman movies (The Seventh Seal and Virgin Spring), Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, and the Japanese movie Kwaidan. It follows two travelers as they come across a large dead creature in the woods. The story is wonderfully mysterious and circular, perhaps representing the seasons. The art is in black and a gorgeous blue, which keeps the story feeling cold even though it takes place in spring. I think I’ll post a sample page because my description of the drawing would probably suck.

Other finds from the show are Garage Band and Notes from a War Story by and Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa. All three are published by First Second and I paid $20 for all of them (such a deal!). I also got Superior Showcase #3 with one story by Jim Rugg and one by Laura Park who can really draw. Her style is cartoony and uses cross hatching really well. Oftentimes, people like myself can find it difficult to find the right balance of cross hatching and comic pages can become too busy. Laura is able to use it to give her drawings weight, but nothing ever feels cluttered. I’ve got to find more stuff by her. Joseph Lambert came by and game me some of his latest books and one story you can read here. He is getting very good, very fast.

There are more books that I haven’t had a chance to go through yet, but I’ve got to end this thing. Hopefully some of these books I mention will peek your interest enough so that you can make some new discoveries yourself.

Mr. Keith Knight at M-15.

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block 4

2008-05-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the most glamorous city in the world.

That's my little dog Toaster up in the corner there. He's quite the cute fellow.

New Wood Postcards

2008-05-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

I've got some new wood postcard designs and they are available on my website and my Etsy store. One is printed on cedar and the other on curly maple. Snazzy!

Stumptown 2008

2008-04-30T23:32:00.001-07:00

Georgene and I began Stumptown in a bit of a hole in regards to rest. It was a long drive from Los Angeles to Portland, spread over two days, and we did not get very good sleep when the opportunity arose. Again, we stayed at the beautiful home of Top Shelf publisher Brett Warnock. One of my favorite things about visiting Brett is that one small block away is a fantastic coffee/donut/gelato shop. I started off every morning with a warm maple and chocolate donut and an espresso. I can’t imagine how fat I’d be if I lived next to that place.

Because we were constantly exhausted (and I was getting killed by the pollen in Oregon), Georgene and I didn’t socialize a whole lot. We went to the party at Cosmic Monkey Saturday night, but it was so packed and we were so tired that we split after about 15 minutes. We were in bed by 10:30.

We did have a great time at the show, however. I picked up a ton of mini-comics, many by artists that I had heard of, but not read. One of those was Fart Party. I bought the recently published book and artist Julia Wertz was kind enough to throw in some of the latest minis, so I’ve got it all now. I’ve read through some of it and it’s some funny stuff. Another comic that I’ve heard a lot about, but never read was Alec Longstreth’s Phase 7. I picked up issue 13 and it was an enjoyable lesson on the history of common people represented by art. I’ll definitely have to pick up some more issues at my next show.

Probably the best drawn mini I got over the weekend was Sarah Oleksyk’s Ivy. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but you can see by the cover that Sarah’s got some drawing chops. Getting the subtle foreshortening and perspective right aint easy, but she’s able to pull it off and keep the drawing lively. I can’t wait to read it.

Something that I have had a chance to read is Joey Sayers’s I’m Gonna Rip Yer Face Off! This is a collection of one page, crudely drawn, but very funny comics. They tend to be absurd and somewhat psychotic. If that’s your bag, check it out. Other funnies that I came home with are Cartoon Dialectics vol. 1 by Tom Kaczynski featuring some stories that have not been in Mome; MariNaomi’s Estrus Comics #5, Lauren O’Connell’s Thrillsville, and issues 7 and 8 of Liz Baillie’s My Brain Hurts. I also got some books by table neighbor’s Sabin (Ambassador Magma) Calvert and Jeff (Jimmy Trout) Chapman. Those are the lads flanking me in the photo.

The last little treasure was not purchased at Stumptown, but at my regular pilgrimage to Powell’s bookstore. It’s a children’s book from 1951 called Rosalinda. It has some fantastic modernist illustrations by Jan B. Balet. I had never heard of him before finding this book, so it was a nice discovery.

It was regrettable that Georgene and I had to miss out on many of the parties held around the show. Hopefully at our next show, MoCCA in New York, we will have better luck. I’m not optimistic however, since my flight will have 2 connections. With the way air travel is these days, I’m not even sure that I’ll get there within 24 hours.

This Weekend - Stumptown

2008-04-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

This weekend I will be at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland. I've got some new postcard designs as well as some new sketchbooks / Journals on maple plywood. None of these are comics, but I've got some new comics out soon, just not for Stumptown.

Star Wars by Anthony Vukojevich

2008-04-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some childhood Star Wars drawings drawn by Anthony Vukojevich back in the 70's. Go here to see more of his prolific prepubescent output as well as some recent stuff.

The Man Who Loved Breasts

2008-03-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

My new comic, The Man Who Loved Breasts, is available for pre-order here. It won't be out until the fall, so by the time you get the comic in the mail, you will have forgotten about it a long time ago. However, after coming home from a miserable day of school or work, this may be the perfect surprise to brighten up your day.

The Man Who Loved Breasts is a one-shot, 32 page black and white comic from Top Shelf. In the title story, Stanley DeMcMacsonianovskivich has been working a dead-end job his whole life and is looking for a way out. He has an epiphany that the secret to happiness is to make a living doing what you love, but his passion isn't exactly golf. The back-up stories are George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist involving a fertility clinic and a man with specialized tastes and A 21st Century Cartoonist in King Arthur's Court.

Super Market

2008-03-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

Since I've been woken up at 5:30 by a moron and his car horn, I'll take advantage of my extra waking hours to mention that I'll be at Super Market this Sunday at Meltdown in Hollywood. Other than me, Tom Neely, Louis Del Carmen, Stuart Ng, and a bunch of other folks will be there. Fun starts at 12 and goes to 6. More info here.

Interview

2008-03-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

I've just been interviewed at Illustration.org. You can check it out here.

Coming Soon...

2008-03-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some new plywood sketchbooks to sell at the summer conventions. This is a picture of a bunch of covers as the polyurethane was drying.

Bibs by Malkasian

2008-03-12T17:54:00.001-07:00

Cathy Malkasian (cartoonist of Percy Gloom) has opened an Etsy shop and is selling some very fine bibs. Check it out here.

Wondercon '08

2008-02-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

For the first time, I attended Wondercon in San Francisco last weekend. I had heard that Wondercon was not a terribly friendly comics show for independent publishers, but I still went to check it out. I did this for two reasons. One is that I can stay with friends in San Francisco and it’s a 6 hour drive from L.A., so my expenses are low. The other reason is, although my main interest is in independent comics, I still like to buy old mainstream comics from time to time. The one place I usually do this is at the San Diego Comic-con. However, over the years, more and more comic dealers have gotten squeezed out of Comic-con for toys, videos, or anything else that’s not comics. With Wondercon, I hoped I could break even on selling comics and also feed that old nerd impulse with the long boxes.

I’m happy to say that after three days of Wondercon, I made plenty of money to justify the trip, met a lot of great people, and found some cool old comics. If anyone is going there for indie stuff, you are bound to be disappointed. There are no publishers like Fantagraphics, Picturebox, AdHouse, Top Shelf, or D&Q. There is a small press area, where I was at, but it was mostly genre type stuff. There were a few exceptions, but not much. I did pick up Keith Knight’s new book, which is really good and met a great artist, Joey Chou who was selling prints and an illustrated book. I also bought Dungeon: The Early Years by Lewis Trondheim, Joann Sfar, and Christophe Blain. This is a great fantasy series that doesn’t seem to get a whole lot of press. If you were going to start reading Dungeon, I’d recommend starting with this book since chronologically it is the earliest one in the series and also one of the best.

The rest of my money went to old comics. I’ve been on a little bit of a 1960’s Gold Key kick, picking up some comics with those wonderful painted covers. Last weekend, I bought a Space Family Robinson and an issue of Mighty Samson with interior art by Frank Thorne. The stories and art in them are pretty good, but not great. The real highlights are the covers and I think it is interesting to see how the future was envisioned by artists 40 years ago. In the case of Space Family Robinson, the future would be filled with very well-adjusted, square-jawed men living in a sterile, dirt free environment. It’s pretty typical of its era.

I also managed to find a 1969 Gold Key reprint of a 1959 Dell adaptation of Darby O’Gill and the Little People drawn by Alex Toth. Toth drew a bunch of movie and TV adaptations for Dell in the late 50’s / early 60’s and I’ve wanted to check some out. It was worth the hunt because Toth’s work in this is really gorgeous. The way he varies making his marks (depending on if he’s drawing a rock wall, the folds of a jacket, or indicating the blades of grass in a field) is so seductive and so well composed. The color tends to overpower the drawing a bit, but a least it isn’t filled with horrible computer gradients. He truly was a master, and sadly, over his long career, the comics he did for Dell may have been the best written, and that isn’t saying much. I would love to see these stories get reprinted with less intrusive color or just in black and white, but since the rights would be tied up with film studios, I doubt it would ever happen.

Another comic I dug up was a 1969 first issue (of 2) of Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon by Wally Wood with one story drawn by Steve Ditko. A dealer had a box of these for $3 each. I’m not much of a Wally Wood fan. Although he could do some nice composing with blacks, I think his drawing is stiff and can be cloying. I do like Steve Ditko, however. Sadly Wood inked Ditko and the result is Ditko’s typically wacked out gestures become almost as stiff as Wood’s art. This is quite an accomplishment, just not a good one. There are three stories, two adventure and one humor and I don’t like Wood’s sense of humor either. There were a couple of interesting panels involving a white alien that left me wondering if Wood was dropping a little 1969 satire, but I’m not really sure.

Other than that, I picked up some old Kirby comics which are always great. I also bought a Bizarro 2-parter that was in All-Star Superman because it was included in the Comics Journal’s best of 2008. After reading it, I don’t see what the big fuss is over. Quietly’s art is nice when it isn’t completely obscured by muddy computer coloring. Beyond that, I think I’m going to have to disagree with the Journal on this one.

So with Wondercon behind me, I have Stumptown in Portland, MoCCA in New York, and Comic-con in San Diego over the next 5 months.

I gotta save more dough.

George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist

2008-01-29T17:07:00.001-08:00

I've been doing some production work on my upcoming comic The Man Who Loved Breasts and thought I would post the back cover. It's of the title character from the second story, George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist. As I've been scanning all the pages and cleaning them up, some of my drawings bug me. They seem a little awkward and clunky. I figure this is typical of artists and if I redrew everything that bothered me it would take 5 years to do 30 pages of comics instead of 1. I'm just going to have to let them go. I did, however, like this back cover drawing, so here it is. Hopefully I can get this all finished so it can debut at MoCCA in NY in June.

Workin' Hard

2008-01-12T17:00:00.001-08:00

2008-01-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

One of the best arguments I've read on getting money out of politics was in this article in the Los Angeles Times. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue threatens to punish all political candidates who promise to do something about reigning in corporate behavior by spending over $60 million to defeat them in the elections. He says, "I'm concerned about anti-corporate and populist rhetoric from candidates for the presidency, members of Congress and the media. It suggests to us that we have to demonstrate who it is in this society that creates jobs, wealth and benefits -- and who it is that eats them."

I guess he's forgotten about the people who work for these corporations and who need a living wage. In response to his threat I did a drawing of him. It's about as subtle as a brick to the face, but I find that he's such a caricature of the greedy, white capitalist, that it was appropriate. I'm selling it on comic art collective and will give the proceeds to my populist of choice, Barack Obama. It's not exactly something anyone would want to hang on their wall, but it's for a good cause. You can line your bird cage with it, the point is that it's now $35 vs. $60 million. Take that Donohue!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T09:39:00.001-08:00

The Little Guy that Lives in My Armpit

2007-12-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Since I'm out of a job, I thought it might be fun to try and submit a design to Threadless. At this point I have put it up for critique here and it's not going too well so far. I'll still submit it for the official vote, so I'll keep you all posted.

In a completely unrelated note, I would like to thank all of my female friends that do not wear velour track suits.

Collateral Damage

2007-11-18T22:27:00.000-08:00

I recently found out that, due to the Hollywood writer's strike, I'm going to be laid off from my day job as a Storyboard Revision Artist on American Dad on November 30th. God knows how long it will all last. When this all began, I found myself siding with the writers, but had to admit that there was a bad taste in my mouth knowing that I could be out of work for guys who are making a lot more money than I am. However, as this proceeded and I've learned more about the situation, it's become easier to support them even though I'm looking at some lean, lean times ahead of me. One reason is because I see this as a creator rights issue. I think most people would agree that the writers of these shows are entitled to get a bigger percentage than the .36% they currently get for video and DVD sales and if I'm not mistaken, nothing for internet downloads. That's about 4 cents for a DVD. They're asking for 8 cents. One example I've read is that the guys who manufacture the box the DVD comes in gets more than the writers of the show it's packaging. It's criminal.

The other issue that bugs the hell out of me is knowing just how much C.E.O's make at these corporations. According to this at the Los Angeles Times, Viacom paid their old chief executive Tom Freston a 60 million dollar severance package. That's how much he got when he was fired. That is more than what the entire industry paid in writer's residuals. That's just obscene and I can't imagine Viacom shareholders being pleased that 60 million dollars went to pay Freston, when a fraction of that could have gone to the writers and avoided a costly strike. Those are some odd priorities for business.

For more info on what this is all about, here is another good L.A. Times article. The writers have my support for as long as this lasts, but until the end comes, maybe someone out there can pass a little illustration work my way.

Podcasts

2007-10-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

Podcasts have been a godsend in keeping me in my chair while drawing all day. However, I find that I often listen to my regular shows faster than they are produced. I'm wondering if folks out there would like to mention some of their favorites in the comments section so I can discover some new shows. Here is a list of what I listen to (all can be found on Itunes). Maybe you will find something new...

Indie Spinner Rack All about independent comics. The hosts are goofy. At least one of them is.

InkStuds Also about independent comics, but with a different vibe.

NPR's Fresh Air Terry Gross interviews subjects as diverse as Sarah Silverman, Alan Greenspan, and Alice Sebold.

KCRW's Left, Right and Center Political punditry that claims to not scream, but lefty Bob Sheer occasionally gets close. Not that I blame him.

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe Skeptics take on everything from faith healers, to free energy, to acupuncture.

KPCC's Film Week Good film criticism with a rotating batch of critics. My favorite is Henry Sheehan.

Bill Moyers Journal This never fails to depress and outrage me. Moyers covers stories that I wish others in the press would cover. We live in a corrupt world.

Astronomy Cast I just started listening to this one. Today, I learned all about various theories of dark energy. Rad!

Stumptown

2007-10-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

I’m always amazed that people are able to blog about a convention the day after it happened. The day following a convention, I am usually unpacking, washing clothes and generally exhausted. This year was even worse since Georgene and I drove from Portland to Los Angeles in one day and I went back to work the following day. It seemed like I was tired for a week and a half. With most of the indy comics world focused on SPX last weekend, I will finally get a small report out.

Our first day was spent looking at houses and neighborhoods in Portland (we’re considering moving there). While we were driving around we stopped by the amazing Powell’s bookstore where I picked up a copy of Bob Gill’s The Millionaires, from 1959. The Millionaires is a black and white picture book that was used by a university instructor of mine to teach us good design in laying out a book. We followed our visit to Powell’s with a trip to Floating World to check out the Al Columbia art show. The show was great and I picked up a Columbia poster as well as The Complete Universe of Dupuy / Berberian. This is a fantastic book filled with illustrations and drawings by two of my favorite cartoonists in the world. Their luscious, confident line work actually shares a little in common with Bob Gill’s.

The next two days were spent at the Stumptown show, which was much, much better than last year's. In 2006 I got the impression that the dealers were just selling comics to each other, with few real attendees making it to the convention center. This year was very different. The show was held in a much cozier location with more people attending. Something I found impressive with Portland is the strong DIY vibe there. I sold a lot of stuff wholesale to people that owned quirky stores / galleries. One of those stores, Tender Loving Empire, is also a music label and publishes mini comics (check out Pinwheel). It’s good to see and I wonder if it is a little easier there since residents are pretty successful at keeping large chain stores out of the city, allowing independent businesses to survive and thrive.

While making the rounds on the floor, I came across Papercutter. This anthology features 3 artists per issue and is only $3. In terms of format, it’s much closer to Zero Zero than Mome. I find this refreshing because with only 3 artists an issue, if a reader likes 2 of them then that is a 66% excitement ratio, which is pretty high for an anthology. Keep in mind that I have been in a few of these bigger anthologies and even edited and published some of them, so I’m no enemy of the bigger format, but it’s definitely a nice change to pay 3 bucks for Sarah Oleksyk, John Porcellino, and Vanessa Davis. Plus, I really miss buying pamphlet comics. It seems like a rare thing for me these days.

Other finds over the weekend include New Tales of Old Palomar #2 (which was great), the hilarious Krayon’s Ego, Superfuckers #279 (my favorite Kochalka comic), Super Spy, The Mourning Star Side Story 3, fellow CSULB alum Joshua Kemble’s Numb and some more things that still need to be read. It was a great show, we met some more great people, and I hope to make it again next year.

I’d also like to give a huge thanks to Top Shelf publisher Brett Warnock, his wife Lisa and rocker kid, Carter, for hosting us over the weekend.

The photo of Georgene and I is by Stumptown phototgrapher, Joshin Yamaha.

Hernandez vs. Malkasian

2007-09-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Here are some photos from tonights signing at Book Soup in Hollywood with Gilbert Hernandez and Cathy Malkasian. I got me a copy of Gilbert's Chance in Hell that I plan to read during the long drive from L.A. to Portland for the Stumptown Comics Fest.

Where I'll be Tuesday night

2007-09-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

You can also own some original Cathy Malkasian art that's on auction for a good cause.

Our Fighting Forces

2007-09-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

Something I always do when I buy an old comic is check out the letters pages for familiar names. Every once in a while I'll come across letter whose author would go on to work in comics themselves. At the monstrous San Diego Comic-Con last July, I picked up a Jack Kirby issue of Our Fighting Forces (#160) from 1975. It was there that I read the letter above. I wondered if it could be the same Gregg Araki who directed movies like the Doom Generation and Mysterious Skin some 20 - 30 years later. After some quick IMDB research I found out that he grew up in Santa Barbara and that Goleta is in Santa Barbara County. He would have been 16 when this letter was published.

Etsy Store

2007-09-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

Etsy is a website for people to sell hand-made wares. You can find things from toys to clothes to mini-comics. I've had a store on there for a few months and most of what I sell can also be found at my website shop. However, I do have some very limited, hand-made items like my cherry wood sketchbooks and the knitted Pentapus that my wife made from my character design.

A Small Preview of Upcoming Work.

2007-09-13T18:47:00.001-07:00

Over the next 6 months or so, I'm going to have a number of comic stories popping up in various publications. Up first will be 2 short stories in Awesome: The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology. If you are not familiar with it, the Indy Spinner Rack is a podcast showcasing the world of indie comics with some reviews and interviews. Included in the anthology are a lot of cartoonists they've either interviewed or discussed, including: Alec Longstreth, Al Columbia, Jamie Tanner, and Nick Bertozzi. For a full preview click here. My stories are A Question of Faith, which is about three ducks and bad judgement and All-American Funnies, a 1-pager about a wrong number. The book will premiere at SPX later this month and be in stores in October.

I have recently found out that the Danny Hellman edited anthology Typhon will finally see print sometime in October. I'm not entirely sure who else is in this one, but I do know it's in color and is an almost square format. I submitted a 1-pager called Pentateuch Funnies starring Abraham.

In January of 2008, I will be returning to the pages of Mome with issue #10. This one will have an Al Columbia cover and I'll have a 9 page story called The Ten Fools, that I originally roughed out for the Fables of India book that I wrote about here a few months ago. I'm glad I had an opportunity to finish the story and that it will see print in Mome.

At the moment, I'm about halfway through inking an 18 page comic called The Man Who Loved Breasts. This will be in a stand alone comic with some other stories and will probably be about 32 pages total, all by me. I'm hoping to get all of the work done by the end of the year and have it come out some time in 2008. I'll post more info as I know it, but for now, here is a preview page.

Charity Mini Golf

2007-08-02T21:42:00.001-07:00

On August 18th, my wife, Georgene and I will be joining Keith Knight and his wife Kirsten play some mini-golf for charity. The charity is 826 Los Angeles which is associated with McSweeney's, and it helps kids with creative and expository writing. Each team is trying to raise as much money as we can, and each team is allowed to cheat in the tournament depending on how much they earn. It should be a lot of fun for a good cause, but I could really use the help of any readers of this blog to help with money for the kids. For more info go here, and if you would like to donate, go here. I appreciate any help we can get, and I'll add a small Comic Con wrap up in a few days.

Thanks!

MoCCA Part 1

2007-07-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

Georgene and I have returned from an intense 4 day weekend in New York and at MoCCA, the independent friendly comic show at the Puck Building in SoHo. Delta Airlines made our traveling unpleasant, but I won’t waste time on the details. We did arrive in New York by Friday afternoon which allowed us time to have coffee with Joy Kolitsky (In the Sea) in Brooklyn and also to see our friend Abby's play that night. I have to admit that after 2 hours of sleep and a glass of wine, the folks who put on the play deserved a more attentive audience than what they got in me.

Saturday morning was the beginning of the show and my table was on the seventh floor. I was nervous that since most of the show was on the ground level that people would not make it up to my table. In the beginning of the show my fears seemed to be coming true and I began to talk to some show volunteers about ways to get more circulation up there. However, after a few hours, the crowds started to find us and we remained pretty busy for the rest of the weekend. In fact, not only was this my most successful show in terms of sales, but the seventh floor had a fantastic panoramic view of the city, lots of natural light, and excellent air flow. None of these were available to the same degree downstairs.

That night I joined the Indie Spinner Rack dinner at the Golden Unicorn in Chinatown. Georgene and I ate with Charlito, Mr. Phil, Monica Gallagher and Matt (sorry, forgot your last name, Matt), Fred Chao with girlfriend Dylan, and Disney Adventures’ Jesse Post. We then went to the Top Shelf party and then an Irish Pub after party where I drank too much and paid a heavy price the next morning.

Sunday it was back to the show and I think sales were actually better on Sunday than Saturday, which never happens. During the weekend I met a bunch of cartoonists, including Jamie Tanner, G.B. Tran, Marcos Perez, Will Dinski, Joseph Lambert, Corinne Mucha, Pat N. Lewis, Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, and more that I simply can’t remember (sorry).

Something worth mentioning is that it seemed like I was constantly running into students from The Center of Cartoon Studies and I was impressed by the work I saw. I was on a limited budget so I only got one of their books but, from what I saw, the school is nurturing each student’s unique drawing style and most books were inventively designed and printed. I can’t comment on the stories at this point (except for the one), but I think they are worth checking out if you get a chance.

It also seemed to me that the there was a lot of quality comics out there. I’m going to post a second part of this report that will focus on individual books that I picked up, but beyond that, I saw many books where a lot of attention was put into how the book was designed in relation to the story. The best comics bring together a great story with great art and good book design, while not as essential, only helps the reading experience.

MoCCA Part II

2007-07-01T18:52:00.000-07:00

Now I’ll take a moment to showcase some of the books I picked up last weekend. I was on a limited budget of only $70, so there was a lot of things I would have liked to get but will have to wait. Books by Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, and Top Shelf are pretty easy to find, so they lost out this time. Some of the books below I got on a trade, which usually results in getting comics that don’t thrill me, but at MoCCA I got some nice stuff.

3 from First Second

I’m finding that one of the best deals to be found at a comic convention is at the table of First Second. They reduce all of their graphic novels to $10 at shows and will throw in a free one if you buy two. My $20 got me A.L.I.E.E.E.N. by Lewis Trondheim, Klezmer by Joann Sfar, and The Black Diamond Detective Agency by Eddie Campbell. The premise of A.L.I.E.E.E.N. is that Trondheim has found an actual alien comic left in the woods in the Catskills (I suppose in his native French edition, it’s the Alps). The comic reminded me a bit of Jim Woodring’s Frank in that it is told without words (at least not of any Earth language) and that it is both funny and disturbing. Trondheim is as masterful at storytelling as Woodring and is very skilled at creating a world with its own rules and relationships as well as communicating those rules to the reader without the need for words or exposition.

I think I’m going to start picking up everything Joann Sfar does, at least everything he both writes and draws; he has 100 books in print and doesn’t draw all of them. Klezmer is the first of a series about a Klezmer band in Eastern Europe at around the turn of the 20th century (I think). This book mostly focuses on how these musicians come together and their individual backgrounds. I know next to nothing about Yiddish culture so it was interesting to get some insight into how they lived and Sfar really stresses the constant vulnerability they felt. Sfar’s art never did much for me until I began to read his comics. His drawing tends to fade away and become a form of writing. The images are not meant to be lingered on, they are dashed off with some watercolor thrown over them and the reader takes the image in and moves on. Other cartoonists take a similar approach, but most don’t draw as well as Sfar. Although his drawings are loose and pared down, they still are very expressive and always communicate what is going on. I’ll be picking up the next volume when it comes out.

Eddie Campbell’s Black Diamond Detective Agency was based on an unproduced movie script by C. Gaby Mitchell. The book starts in 1899 with a bombed train and something mysterious taken from it. It reads a bit like a Hollywood movie, with a Harrison Ford type unlikely hero on the lam and climaxing in a literally explosive ending. That’s not to say it’s bad, though. If Hollywood made movies executed as well as this, I might watch more of them, but at the same time, it doesn’t transcend the formula too much. It’s good to see Campbell drawing the 19th century again, but it doesn’t have the inventiveness or rich characterization as something like Klezmer.

Are You Often Impulsive in Your Behavior by Will Dinski

This was the first time I have seen Will’s work. He had a table of different books including a hard cover made by hand (God bless him). I settled on Behavior for a few reasons. One is that it is about a subject near to my heart and apartment: Scientology. Living in Los Angeles, Scientologists are everywhere, and I live next to one of their larger complexes on L. Ron Hubbard Dr. (I can only imagine how much they paid the city for that honor). Will’s comic is about taking a Scientology personality test in Minnesota. The comic is on one large sheet of cardstock, folded over twice to the size of a .45 record sleeve. The resulting book adds up to 4 pages and folds out to a large scale reproduction of Will’s test printed on the back of the sheet. The comic uses a combination of pleasing panel design, using mostly small squares filled with either drawings or dialogue as well as a strong use of 2 colors. Basically, the comic is well designed, drawn, and written, using the questions of the test against the testers in an effective way. Definitely seek Mr. Dinski out. He’d be a great candidate for an anthology.

Recent Work: A Menagerie of Short Tales by Corinne Mucha

I first saw Corinne’s comics at SPX a couple of years ago. Her boyfriend Sam gave me a copy of her mini I Lived in Alaska, which was about working there over a summer. Recent Works is made up of short strips of her daily live (much like I Lived in Alaska, but without the Alaska). I’m not usually into slice-of-life autobio comics, but instead of going for finding deep meaning or poignancy in mundane things, Corinne goes for humor, and wins me over. She has a somewhat naïve style similar to the drawings of illustrator Keri Smith, with the whimsy and charm of Souther Salazar. Probably my favorite part of the comic is about how boyfriend Sam picked a big booger out of his nose and stuck it in hers, which she had to pick out. I thought I terrorized my wife - something like that never occurred to me.

I Will Bite You by Joseph Lambert

I saw a lot of work by Center of Cartoon Studies students at MoCCA and Joseph is one of them. I Will Bite You is a mini comic about a kid who bites everything around him. In both theme and drawing style, it reminded me of children’s books circa 1910. It’s not drawn quite as well (but those guys were masters, and Joseph is a student), but that’s not to say it isn’t very capable work. The wordless storytelling is strong and clear, his pages are well designed and the book has that creepy, dangerous quality those old cautionary children’s books could have. I’d love to see a version with some lithographic coloring. The school probably isn’t set up for something like that, however.

wewedodo and Lobo Caliente by Molly Colleen O’Connell

Next to my table was one with 3 printmaking students from Maryland Institute College of Art. This table had a swarm around it all weekend and with good reason. They had a bunch of hand printed books and prints that were just gorgeous. I settled on 2 books by Molly Colleen O’Connell that are entirely screenprinted with 4 colors. There is a bit of a story to wewedodo, but frankly, I bought it for its appearance. It’s beautifully drawn, designed, and printed. Both books are remarkable and I would urge you to check out her website.

There were other books I wanted to discuss that stood out like Monica Gallagher’s Boobage (this was the only comic my non-comic reading wife read), G.B. Tran’s Mobile, the work of Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, and more, but I’ve already written close to 2000 words and have comics of my own to draw. Forgive me if you gave me something and I left it out. The general feeling I got from what I saw is that the bar is being raised in mini comics and artists are taking advantage of what can be done with a book in terms of printing and design when only printing a few hundred copies. It also looks like the drawing and craft of storytelling is getting stronger than what I’ve seen in the past. This would be a good time to be an anthology editor with so many talented, underexposed artists out there.

3 Conventions in 6 Weeks

2007-06-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

It begins this weekend in NYC at MoCCA, an indy comic show put on by Museum of Comic Art. There will be a ton of great hand made comics with silk screen prints as well as other dealers like Fantagraphics, Top Shelf and Drawn and Quarterly. Next I'm in my home town of Los Angeles on July 15th for Felt Club. Its a craft show, but not one with needlepoint pillows with bible verses. Check out the link. There's lots of great hand made stuff being sold there. Finally it's off to the Mecca of Geekdom, the San Diego Comic Con from July 25th to the 29th. I'll be in the small press area.

In addition to the comics I've drawn or published, I'll have some new hand made screen printed plywood sketchbooks (some covers you can see below) as well as some little stuffed animals of my character Pentapus, knitted by my wife, Georgene (see above). I've also got some new wooden postcards done with Spitfire Girl. Come by and say hello.

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block 3

2007-06-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

It's a little early for another visual log of things left on my block, but the offerings were too good to pass up. One in particular warrented two photos. They were all taken this morning, June 21.

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block 2

2007-06-01T23:29:00.001-07:00

As I went to walk my dog, I realized that I had forgotten a poo bag. This didn't bother me, since there always seems to be some bit of trash on the block that I can use to pick up shit (and also clean up the block a little bit). So my dog decides to drop one and I look around for a bag or something. Within ten feet of where I'm standing, I find some 2 foot strips of toilet paper lying on the yard of an apartment building. Toilet paper! The block provides.

These pictures were all taken while walking my dog around my block last Saturday, May 26th.

Robert Gomez - Daytrotter

2007-05-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is another illustration for Daytrotter; this time of Robert Gomez. You can listen to some of his first album at his myspace page. I actually heard a song of his on KCRW last week and it was kind of a weird experience. I knew that the song was very familiar, but I also knew that I hadn't heard it on the radio before. Then it all came back to me.

Fables de L'Inde Part 2 of 2

2007-05-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

After another meeting to go over my story choices, I roughed out 30 pages of comics. One of the stories would be a new version of Monkey, but compressed to fit the French mainstream taste in storytelling. I’m not the fastest artist in the world and, then, I was even slower since drawing comics was still rather new to me. I spent a few months on the roughs and took them to the editor. He liked them. A lot. While I was sitting in his office, he made copies to give to the marketing department. He also asked me to think about what country I would like to do for my next book.

Life looked really good. Now I needed to color the pages so I could start getting paid. Our finances were getting low, so the timing was perfect. I decided to paint the pages because, in general, I’m not the biggest fan of computer coloring and whenever I tried it myself, it turned out terrible. The down side was that it took me about a week to paint one page.

I dropped off 3 pages to the editor and waited for his response (The images seen here aren't very good scans). If all went well and they didn’t want many revisions, I would get paid for those pages and could focus on doing as good and as fast a job as I could. I don’t mean to focus too much on money here, but things were pretty tight and we were getting desperate.

By now, summer had arrived. Our landlords had sublet the apartment back from us for two weeks and we were going to go to Nice for that time. If you’re going to be poor, it might as well be in the south of France. I still hadn’t heard about my pages, but decided to bring my work. I would paint in the morning and spend the rest of the day at the beach.

Every day we walked a couple of miles to check e-mail to see if my work had been approved. We fantasized about doing things we could not normally afford to do, like going out for a good dinner instead of cooking every meal ourselves, and maybe some shopping. Day after day, for two weeks, no e-mail came. I was getting a little nervous and scared. By this time, I had painted almost 6 pages.

I called my editor as soon as I returned to Montreuil. He had me come in, Georgene acting as my translator, and said the paintings looked too much like illustration. He wanted to know if I could computer color the pages. This was upsetting. I didn’t want my book to look like the other mainstream French books and felt computer coloring would take away a lot of its charm. However, we needed to eat and pay rent. In the face of this kind of desperation, I probably would have had the X-men guest star if it meant I could get some cash. I was also incredibly frustrated that all that time I spent painting in Nice was a complete waste. I’d have much rather wasted my time at the beach.

I quickly inked up 3 pages and tried my hand at coloring them. After e-mailing them in, I waited and waited. I continued inking more pages, again thinking that once they were approved, I would have that much more work done and would be that much closer to getting Georgene and I out of our financial hole. When I finally got a reply, I was told my coloring wasn’t up to snuff. No real big surprise there, I suppose.

My next step was to ask my friend, Nora Murphy Berden to color it for me. Nora has done coloring in animation for years. She tried 3 pages. We waited 5 weeks for the editor to return from the vacation the French take in August. He passed on Nora’s pages. I suggested using one of their house colorists to do the book. They must like him! My editor said that although my idea was a good one, the colorist I mentioned was busy. What about any colorist? I never got a response.

This experience left me feeling like I was crazy. Had I screwed this up somehow? I was never given any explanation for why my book was killed. One theory we had was that the two books they already printed had tanked. In fact, in searching their website, we never found any books in the series except the two that were already printed when we first met the editor. But if that was the case, why not simply tell me? The coloring issue didn’t make any sense, because I’m sure they could have found someone they liked to color it. It was a nightmare. Georgene and I ultimately went into debt and I returned to the animation industry for a little while when we moved back to the U.S. to get our finances in order. I did try a few other publishers, but a comic of fables wasn’t a very commercial thing to print. I was able to salvage one story, “Moon Lake” and had a color version (by Nora) of the story on Serializer.net. I reworked it a bit for black and white and printed it in Apres-Shampooing.

In looking back on the experience, I’m somewhat haunted that I didn’t demand an explanation. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Maybe it was because I was in a foreign country and didn’t want to cause problems. I also think my confidence had completely crumbled. All of those stages of trying to make things work really messed with my head. Every day I thought today would be the day I’d be told everything was great and could continue. It was miserable. By the time it came to an end, I was spent, and just didn’t have the energy or the confidence to demand answers.

I never got a penny for any of it. I did learn a costly lesson about signing a contract up front. The whole experience was an absolute heartbreaker, but I’m sure many artists have something like this happen at one time or another. Fortunately, having a blog makes it possible to show some of the work to people. Hope you like it.

Notes: The computer colored pages on this post were done by Nora, not me. I'm not sure what happened to mine, but they weren't too hot.

Fables de L'Inde

2007-05-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

I was looking over some old work and it reminded me of a rather long story that happened to me a few years ago. It's a long enough story that I'll have to tell it in parts.

A few years ago, my girlfriend Georgene and I decided to spend a year in France. As plans developed, we got engaged and the idea morphed into a year long, working honeymoon in Paris. I was a full time, burned out storyboard artist working in animation. Georgene was a full time, burned out producer of TV movies. The plan was to save our money so we could focus on our dreams: drawing comics for me, writing a novel for her.

Eighteen months before our trip, I had to leave my job for a variety of reasons. I thought I would quickly find more work, but that was not the case. Hollywood writers had threatened to strike and studios produced a surplus of shows in anticipation of the downtime. The strike never happened, but there was still not much work to be found because shows had been stockpiled for up to two years in advance.

Eventually, we did make it to Paris, or one metro stop outside of Paris in the town of Montreuil, but we only had money to get through six months. Georgene had done her part, but I had failed in doing mine. I needed to find a way to make some money.

Miraculously, France’s annual children’s book expo would take place right across the street from our apartment, two weeks after we arrived. I printed out some of my work and hand stitched mini portfolios in preparation for the show. Fortunately, one of my comics, an adaptation of an Indian fable called The Monkey and the Crocodile, had been printed in Switzerland, so I had a French language comic to show.

Georgene and I went to the show hoping to find me some work. This was exhausting for Georgene. I didn’t speak any French, so she acted as my agent/translator for two long days. Georgene’s French is pretty good, but there is a big difference between getting around town, and instantly translating multiple conversations.

We talked with 20 publishers or so over 2 days. No luck. On the last day, at the last publisher, lightning struck. This publisher printed both children’s books and comics. While looking at The Monkey and the Crocodile, the editor mentioned they were doing comic books of fables from around the world. They had already done Thailand and Vietnam and were looking for someone to do India.

A few weeks later, we met with the editor at his office in Paris. The book he wanted me to do would be a typical, European comic album; a hardcover, 32 page full color book. The deal he offered was a very reasonable per page advance against royalties. Best of all, the advance would be paid as I delivered the color pages – I would not have to deliver the complete book to see the money. After giving me a copy of one of the collection of Vietnam fables that they had just published, the editor told me to contact him when I knew what stories I wanted to use in my book.

I couldn’t believe my luck. Christmas was in a few days and I’d been given an early present. I’ve liked French comics since first discovering them in the mid-90’s. Now, one of these books would have my work in it and I would be getting paid decent money, especially when compared to independent American comics. It was as if some hand had perfectly guided me down this path. By dumb luck, I found a way to make a living drawing the kinds of comics I wanted to draw. I could do a slightly commercial book to bring in enough money to live on, and do quirky, less commercial (meaning non-paying) work on the side. It was a way to make a small living, retain some integrity, and do what I loved doing. I had found Jesus’ challis.

Part 2 of 2 will be posted on Wednesday.

Hollywood is Burning

2007-05-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is the view outside my window of the fire in Griffith Park.

Joy Kolitsky

2007-05-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

Since I'm on the subject of new work by artists that I worked with during my Robot Publishing Co. days, I thought I'd mention Joy Kolitsky's somewhat new enterprise, Sugar Beet Press. Joy did the cover of Oden (as well as two stories in it) and also did the exceptionally beautiful In the Sea. Sugar Beat Press is her greeting card company and the website has a lot of her designs. They are available for wholesale (with a minimum order of 48), but if you send out a lot of Christmas cards, that may be perfect.

Also check out her website to see some of her illustration work for the New York Times Book Review and the Progressive.

Percy Gloom Preview Part 2

2007-04-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to get an advance copy of the book from Cathy last week and wanted to show some spreads from it. The printing job is fantastic. I look forward to reading people's reaction to it when it hits the stores in a month or so. (And in case you are wondering, those are my wife's lovely fingers, not mine. Mine are more delicate.)

A Preview of Percy Gloom

2007-04-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

Cathy Malkasian will be having her first graphic novel, Percy Gloom, come out some time very soon through Fantagraphics. (In fact, some advance copies will be on sale at APE, but I understand that supply will be very limited.) I’ve had the good fortune of seeing this book develop over the last year, and it’s really terrific. On the surface, it’s about aspiring cautionary writer Percy Gloom moving to a new village to fulfill his dream of writing warnings on. The town is full of eccentrics, actually the whole world that Cathy creates is eccentric, and the tale is completely absurd, but again, that’s on the surface. Through all of the craziness there is something there, at the root of this world that is universal and keeps it all grounded.

Here’s the description from Amazon:

Occupying an unreal world of secret societies, benevolent families, and bureaucratic security, lazy-eyed Percy Gloom fights to overcome the loss of his wife, Lila, to a truth-pointing, lotharian cult-leader. Pursued by the muffin-throwing daughter of the city's important family and purposeless in life, Percy finds some security and meaning through a position testing various everyday items (such as hairbrushes and encyclopedias) for their danger potential. Approached by his doctor to help protect some special people and given advice by some talking goats, Percy comes to terms with his place in the gloomy world and finds himself reaching enlightenment (literally).

If you liked Pater Contrarious, then you’ve got to pick this up. It’s drawn in a similar style and I understand will be printed using the same duotone process. However, where Pater Contrarious was 16 pages, this one is 150.

Also, check out the new Percy Gloom website. You'll find a recipe for blue berry muffins and can listen to goats sing opera.

Alternative Press Expo - San Francisco

2007-04-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'll be going to the Alternative Press Expo this weekend. I've been busy making some more sketchbook/journals for the show. These ones are 3 silk screened colors on either luon (small) or birch (large) plywood covers. They're very much like my birch tree ones I did a little while back.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Daytrotter

2007-04-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

I just did an illustration for an Aqua Teen Hunger Force promo at Daytrotter. Back in my animation days, drawing on model was never a strength of mine. Fortunately in the illustration world, it's not so necessary.

You can buy the original drawing of this here.

Cartoonists I'd Like to See Translated 4: David Prudhomme

2007-04-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

When I was living in Paris, I was running a little early to my weekly French class and I ducked into a stationary store to buy a pen and kill a little time. In France, comics are sold in most stores that books are sold, and books are sold in more kinds of stores than in America, including stationary stores. However, most of the comics found in stores like this are pretty mainstream genre type stuff and not terribly interesting. With this in mind, I was pretty shocked to come across Etienne Davodeau and David Prudhomme’s La Tour des Miracles de Georges Brassens, printed by mainstream publisher Delcourt.

I guess the mainstream hook is that the book is about an extremely popular French singer/songwriter from the 50’s. Prudhomme’s artwork however, is something I would expect to see out of a L’Association book (if they printed in color). It is drawn in pencil, ink, color pencil, watercolor, and whatever else may have been near Prudhomme’s drawing table. One of the things that I just love about it is that elements of the drawing are not always handled in the same way. Sometimes Prudhomme lets some scribbled pencil underdrawing show through the painting, or he will have erased out someone’s face and let the rubbed out hole remained unfinished. At other times, he will draw over more opaque paint with color pencil or ink. It’s an approach that reminds me a bit of Picasso in that elements within a page or even a panel are fluctuating between translucent and opaque, very loose and more carefully rendered, areas of intense, busy linework, and more open spaces of pure color or blank paper. It takes a lot of skill to be able to bring together all of these various elements and not have a mess. It’s especially difficult in the context of a comic page where one has many self-contained pictures co-existing on a page. It is Prudhomme’s strength however to keep the chaos just under control; he benefits from the energy that the tension creates.

As far as what the book is about, I’m not very sure. I’m guessing that since the comic credits list Etienne Davodeau and David Prudhomme as adapting La Tour des Miracles, then I would assume it was originally a song or maybe a memoir. Brassens is a character who appears to be surrounded by a bunch of lunatic friends. Half the book takes place in Paris, the other half, I’m guessing, the south of France. I would think that since it is about a French singer that most people in English speaking North America haven’t heard of, an English translation isn’t coming any time soon, but if you find yourself going on a trip to France, hunt this one down. Its really fantastic.

My Office / Closet

2007-03-31T15:15:00.000-07:00

Where comic making magic happens almost every day...

Daytrotter

2007-03-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've started doing some illustrations for Daytrotter. If you haven't heard of it, Daytrotter is an indie music website that features articles and reviews, which by itself isn't terribly unusual. The thing that separates Daytrotter from the rest, however, is that twice a week they feature 4 songs recorded in their studio by a band for free to download. It's kind of like those old Peel Sessions E.P's, but its free. The illustration above is of Patrick Cleandenim (I love that name.)

T-Shirt

2007-03-11T18:31:00.000-07:00

I've designed a new shirt in 3 different colors for men and women. You can check it out here.

The Fish Keeper

2007-03-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

My wife, Georgene, and I have done another book along the lines of The Suicidal Dog called The Fish Keeper. Like The Suicidal Dog, this is a short story written by Georgene and illustrated by me. It's in a zine format, meaning it was printed on our printer on 8.5" x 11" paper, folded over, and stapled. You can read more info by clicking on The Fish Keeper link here. I also have the original art of the illustrations available at the Comic Art Collective.

Cartoonists I'd Like to See Translated 3: Jacques Tardi

2007-03-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

Unlike my previous two entries, Jacques Tardi has had some work printed in English. I first came across him in Raw (where I discovered so many artists that are now favorites). NBM printed a few books from his Adèle Blanc-Sec series, Dark Horse printed another as a stand alone comic book (The Secret of the Salamander), Fantagraphics has published him in Pictopia,and a few years ago, a publisher I had never heard of, Ibooks, printed The Bloody Streets of Paris (an adaptation of a Leo Malet WWII era mystery). These books never seem to get much attention and I seldom ever see them in any stores. I have to assume that they don’t sell particularly well and I can’t understand why. Tardi is considered a master in Europe and you’d be hard pressed to find a better cartoonist on any continent. Tardi has the perfect combination of solid storytelling, wonderful detail in backgrounds and clothes (which is important, since most of his stories take place in a Paris of the past), as well as an expressive line and way of drawing people.

It should also be noted that even with a half dozen or so books in the Adèle Blanc-Sec series, the character that Tardi seems to love more than all others and returns to in book after book, is the city of Paris. He draws it better that anyone I’ve seen, capturing the architecture, the wet cobblestones, the drizzling rain, and the bare branched winter trees. His drawings go beyond the journalistic documenting of details and move to the intangible state of capturing a feeling of a place. I have no idea how he does it. I suppose this is the magic of art that people try to learn and teach, but you either have it or don’t.

Although there has been work by Tardi available from time to time, there are two books that I think have been strangely ignored by North American publishers - well, almost ignored. C'était la Guerre des Tranchées (It was the War of the Trenches) is a series of short stories about World War I, some of which were printed in Raw, and some in the Drawn and Quarterly anthology, but never all of them in one volume. This is a book that serves Tardi’s strengths very well. His attention to detail captures the disgusting conditions of the trenches, with the rats, mud, puddles of stagnant water and barbed wire, the disemboweled horses blown up into trees, and military equipment. All of this brings the reader into the Hell that his characters have to live with. However, Tardi always maintains a balance between these details and keeping his drawings expressive. The men of the trenches can look fearful, anxious, or emotionally dead and reserved to their fate. How he can do this with just a few facial lines, I don’t know. He is up there with Jose Munoz and Jaime Hernandez in his ability to communicate so much emotional depth within a seemingly simple drawing of a character’s face. This book is a tour de force by one of the greatest living cartoonists in the world and hopefully, some publisher will translate it, and properly promote it, so it will get the recognition it deserves.

The other book that I think would be an excellent candidate for translation is Le Cri du Peuple (The Cry of the People). This book is more recent, with the first volume printed in 2001 by Casterman. This is a comic adaptation from the novel of the same name by Jean Vautrin about a tragic part of French history that, until I lived in Paris for a year, I knew nothing about, the Paris Commune of 1871. After France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, many people of Paris rebelled against both the Prussians and the French Government, taking over the city by force and creating a new socialist, democratic government. Within their brief existence, the Commune passed decrees of a separation of church and state (America should consider this), voting rights for women, and a pension for the unmarried partners of deceased National Guardsmen (the commune’s army). In less than 60 days the commune was defeated, slaughtered and executed by the French Government. I have only the first volume of 5 books, so the complete graphic novel must be over 400 pages. It appears to be an interesting mix of history, politics and culture (Gustave Courbet makes an appearance and was a large figure in the Commune). Needless to say, I’d love to see this series of books put out as one volume in English. I would think it would do well in schools, too, having the educational combination noted above, but the book does have some nudity and a reproduction of Courbet’s risqué L’Origine du Monde and we all know what happens when American teens see nudity. They have pre-marital sex and ruin their lives. I guess this would never fly in schools. It’s too bad, it looks like a great book. (Sorry about the sample page getting cut off, this is not an easy book to scan.)

Interview Time

2007-02-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

Cathy Malkasian and I were interviewed by Charlito and Mr. Phil at the Indy Spinner Rack. Conversation topics include: mini-comics, commercial failure, metaphysics, UPA cartoons, bodily functions, and Cathy's upcoming graphic novel Percy Gloom.

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block

2007-02-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

I often thought I could furnish a small apartment by simply picking up unwanted crap that people leave on my block. Here are some photos taken on two days about 2 weeks apart. On the second day I was stopped by some guys:

What's with the flash photography?
I'm just taking pictures of things that people leave on the street.
Your not taking pictures of the tags?
No. Just shit on the street.
Alright. That's cool.
See ya later.
Yeah.

Since these photos were taken on two different days, I'm showing twice as much as what is out any given day. I don't want people to think that I live in the ghetto.

Sadly, in between the time of my two photo shoots, there was an almost complete chocolate cake laying by the curb. It sat there for about 4 days. I wasn't sure if someone didn't feel like eating it and thought maybe someone else on the block may like it, or if they just dropped it while taking it out of their car and left it there. I kept thinking that I had to get a picture of it, but then it was gone.

Gratitude

2007-02-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a moment to thank those who linked to my new website as well as the many people who came by to check it out. I had visitors from all around the States as well as Canada, Germany, Argentina and Turkey. Gotta love the internet. Thank you all and especially to Brett Warnock at Top Shelf, Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics, Tom Spurgeon at the Comics Reporter and the Desert Hermit at the Indy Spinner Rack Forums. I appreciate your help.

Cartoonists I'd Like to See Translated 2: Markus Huber

2007-02-05T22:27:00.000-08:00

I know very little about Markus Huber. According to Lambiek, he is German and lives in Hamburg. He hasn’t done a ton of comics and I don’t believe he has done anything of any great length. I think most of his time is spent as an illustrator.

My knowledge of his work is based primarily on two books. The first is Nichts Von Bedeutung (the one I have was published by Zyankrise, but it is now published by Edition Moderne out of Zurich). This is a small book (4 ¾” x 6 ½”), a little larger than the Patte de Mouche series by L’Association or my own company’s Lunchtime Stories. It’s printed in two colors and is comics taken from some pop songs by local musicians. Huber’s drawings have a general uncomfortable feeling about them. The perspective is flattened, as if objects may roll off the page. Figures are angular and often looking out of the corner of their eyes. When they smile, it seems painted on. The anthology Le Cheval sans Tete printed a portion of this book in black and white and I prefer it that way. I don’t know what the songs are about, so maybe the color works better in that context, but I prefer black and white, which seems to better represent the starkness of Huber’s world.

The other book I have is Promenade a Saturnia, published by Amok (who also published Le Cheval sans Tete). It’s about 4 people on a trip to Italy with a little Death guy cruising around in a cart, boat, or plane. I love the drawings in this book. Each page is a small symphony of marks, some thin wavy lines, some stubby and thick, as well as solid blacks and sparse whites. They come together to describe figures and settings as well as telling a story. They also work in a more abstract manner creating a beautiful pattern on a page. Getting all of this to harmonize on a page is not easy, but Huber makes it look that way. At 20 pages, if I were putting together an anthology, this would be a dream story to try to get in English.

Although my knowledge and collection of Huber’s work is limited, he does have an excellent website where much of it is bilingual. In fact, he has a wonderful comic called The Comeback that is in English on his site. I would strongly suggest checking it out if you like what you see here.

Cartoonists I'd Like to See Translated: Frederik Peeters

2007-01-30T17:31:00.000-08:00

This is a good time for the monolingual fans of European comics. Between Fantagraphics, NBM, Drawn and Quarterly, First Second, and Pantheon, more and more top notch work is becoming available to readers in North America. In the last few years, Marjane Satrapi, David B, Lewis Trondheim, Jason, Christophe Blain, Dupuy/Berberian, Joan Sfar, and more have been translated and found some success here, introducing North American readers to a new world of cartoonists.

As good as its been however, there is still a lot of great stuff on the other side of the Atlantic that we’ve yet to get. I thought I would spend a little time listing some of my candidates for any new division heads or publishers to pounce on and be hailed for their exquisite taste and become an immediate critical and financial success.

A small handicap that I have, (just a small one) is that I speak and read French like Batroc the Leaper speaks English, with a mostly English vocabulary and sentence structure and a few commonly used French words thrown in for flavor. If you want to read an informed opinion about this stuff, I would recommend reading Bart Beatty’s columns at the Comics Reporter, or go to Paul Gravett’s site. They actually know what they’re talking about. My opinions are based on the art and storytelling as well as from reading other works by the same artist that may have been translated.

I’ll start my list with the work of Frederik Peeters. I first came across him in two Swiss anthlogies in the late 90’s. He has been a regular contributor to both Bile Noire published by Atrabile (Geneva) as well as a greatest-anthology-of-all-time candidate, Drozophile published by Drozophile (also Geneva). Hopefully I’ll write a bit more about these publishers in the future.

Also in the late 90’s, Top Shelf publisher, Brett Warnock and I co-edited the anthology Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions. I used this as an opportunity to try and get some work translated by some favorite artists of mine, Frederik being one of them. We ran the nine page Le Petit Pays du Bonheur, a story about how an idyllic village in the pacific becomes ruined by tourism as seen through the eyes of a dog.

In 2001, Atrabile released Peeters’ first long work, the autobiographical Pilules Bleues (Blue Pills). This book was well received and Indyworld wrote that “(it) ranks among the best comics published anywhere in the world in the past few years.” One would think that with the success of memoirs in both literature and comics (Persopolis, Epileptic, Fun Home, Blankets) that a publisher would be jumping on this, but as far as I know, it’s not coming out in English any time soon.

At around the same time, Peeters released Les Miettes through Drozophile. This is a book much less grounded in reality than Pilules Bleues (which did have fantasy moments). It follows a train inhabited by a bizarre cast of characters, including conjoined twins and a WWI soldier. The entire story takes place on the train, but where the train is racing to, I couldn’t tell you. However, towards the end of the book, both train and track soar up into the air. The book looks gorgeous, entirely silkscreen printed in two colors. The line art is a maroon brown and the second color starts a dull olive green and then almost imperceptibly warms as the book progresses.

A year later, Peeters’ longest work started. Releasing a volume a year, Lupus recently ended with volume 4 and was named an “essential album” at this year’s festival at Angouleme. Although this near 400 page book is science fiction, it seems to avoid the traps common to the genre (like endless exposition) instead staying focused on character. This is not a book with prolonged action scenes and, when violence appears, it is quick and shocking. Common Sci-fi elements like futuristic cityscapes or spaceships are always secondary. Peeters’ ability to downplay the futuristic elements makes it seem more realistic. It’s as if the viewer has seen it all and it should be taken for granted (and in many ways, we have). It’s not to say that these elements aren’t well thought out, they are, but they are never the focus of the book. It is always about the characters. As you can see in the sample pages I’ve posted, he is more likely to be concerned with the subtlety of his characters’ expressive gestures than some detail on a building or ship.

I’m curious how this book would do here. In the world of literary comics that have been getting so much press in places like the New York Times, the science fiction genre may make this book a harder sell than something like Pilules Bleues. At this point though, I would love to see any of Frederik’s work make it over here.

Post Script: If anyone wants to chime with more information about whatever I'm posting, feel free. I welcome anyone's expertise (especially if they can read French.)

www.robertgoodin.com 2.0

2007-01-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

My redesigned website is up and most of the kinks have been worked out. However I'm finding that Explorer does some weird things like moving links to different places. Its beyond my limited html knowledge to figure out why, so if anyone out there knows how to fix such things and wants to give me some pointers I would appreciate it. Also, if anyone finds that things aren't working the way they should or come across a typo of some sort, please let me know.

This blog is a new thing for me and my site. I think that I will focus mostly on comics that I think are not getting as much attention that I think they should. I may also preview some friends comics that are coming out or try an interview or two. We'll see...

The Wood Paneled Basement

A Great Christmas Present

Black Eye

A Color Test

Monsters Project

Breasts in Japan

Gomorrah

West Coast Avengers

Bound and Gagged at Secret Headquarters this Friday

Outtake

The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung

Holiday Weekend

Covered Art Show

Finished Jung

Uncle Scrooge Adventures 3 Covered

The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung

Mum

Taking Lessons from Johnny Craig

Coffee Shop Drawings

Getting Ready for Comic-Con

Awesomer

More Roughs

Roughing It

Restless and Rejected

New Work at Comic Art Collective

The Monster Show

The Forest

Felt Club!

Alternate Ending

I Went to a Local Comic Convention Today...

Isn't it a little early for this?

More New Postcards

Signing this Thursday at Meltdown in Los Angeles

The Man Who Loved Breasts

Typhon is here

Commission

New Postcards

San Diego Comic Con: Part 2 Wonder Women

San Diego Comic Con: Part 1

Rob and Cathy: At the Con

New Postcards!

MoCCA 2008

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block 4

New Wood Postcards

Stumptown 2008

This Weekend - Stumptown

Star Wars by Anthony Vukojevich

The Man Who Loved Breasts

Super Market

Interview

Coming Soon...

Bibs by Malkasian

Wondercon '08

George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist

Workin' Hard

Merry Christmas

The Little Guy that Lives in My Armpit

Collateral Damage

Podcasts

Stumptown

Hernandez vs. Malkasian

Where I'll be Tuesday night

Our Fighting Forces

Etsy Store

A Small Preview of Upcoming Work.

Charity Mini Golf

MoCCA Part 1

MoCCA Part II

3 Conventions in 6 Weeks

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block 3

Stuff Left by the Street on my Block 2

Robert Gomez - Daytrotter

Fables de L'Inde Part 2 of 2

Fables de L'Inde

Hollywood is Burning

Joy Kolitsky

Percy Gloom Preview Part 2

A Preview of Percy Gloom

Alternative Press Expo - San Francisco

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Daytrotter