This endorsement of the great Patrick Smith‘s Vector Park. Patrick has recently been making some terrific paintings, as Sammy Harkham pointed out a while back.
Here’s one of them:
This is all in the interest of having an extremely roundabout and strained excuse for reminding everyone that Sammy is collaborating with Guy Davis on a really amazing cover for the next issue of Comics Comics. Get psyched.
If you enjoyed Peter Bagge‘s essay on Spider-Man in the second issue of Comics Comics (which was partially inspired by the time he spent creating Megalomaniacal Spider-Man), you might also like this page from his aborted shelved* Incorrigible Hulk, which is currently making the internet rounds.
(via Again With the Comics)
*improved word choice stolen from Dirk
THE BELIEVER: What’s it like spending all this time mining your adolescence to find the hardest, darkest, maybe the funniest stories? Is this a way of purging these experiences? Or making sense of them?
LAUREN WEINSTEIN: Even if you’re pulling up old memories, they’re completely unreliable. I remember running into this guy before our ten-year high-school reunion. He said, “Oh, man, what really destroyed high school for me was that I could never date anyone because I wrote that really bad, hyperconservative op-ed piece about how women should be barefoot and tied to the stove.” And I thought, That’s not why no one dated you. But that was his story. In general, everyone’s got their own issues in high school, and they’re not such a big deal to other people.
Because the print run of the second issue of Comics Comics has sold out, we are now making it available for free downloading over at the sidebar.
So if you missed out on getting your own copy (and unfortunately, this one really does work best in its oversize paper form), you can now finally enjoy:
Peter Bagge on Spider-Man!
An interview with PShaw! (He has posted a nice color variation of this issue’s cover on his own site, by the way.)
Part one of a far-too-long essay on Steve Gerber‘s cult ’70s Marvel comics (Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, etc.)! (By the way, don’t forget to read the article’s accidentally excised footnotes.)
Kevin Nowlan on color separations!
Dan on Dave Sim‘s Collected Letters 2004!
Mark Newgarden on Michael Kupperman!
A beautiful “perpetual calendar” by the legendary Justin Green!
Comics and cartoons by PShaw, Matthew Thurber, and Lauren R. Weinstein!
And more!
P.S. When you’re done, drop us a line. There’s still time to make the letters page for issue three.
In the latest Comics Journal, manga critic Bill Randall asks who will publish modern master Yuichi Yokoyama in English. Well, look no further. PictureBox is releasing an English version (though still reading right to left) of Yokoyama’s first book, New Engineering, in October. Travel, his second book, will follow in 2008, which will bring us up to date just in time to release a third, as yet untitled book that, having seen chunks of it, I can safely say is next level stuff. Randall’s analogy to Fort Thunder is right on. In fact the first time my friend Mike Buckley showed me the work he said “it’s like Brinkman crossed with Chris Ware.” Pretty much. It will be released simultaneously with Chippendale’s Maggots, CF’s Powr Mastrs, Santoro’s Storeyville and Weinstein’s Goddess of War. Yes, it’s “go time” at PictureBox HQ.
So there you have it: Your Comics Journal response of the day (great issue, by the way).
Remember when we used to sometimes post reviews and little essays on here. Well, we’re sort of too busy pulling together Comics Comics 3, our biggest and best issue yet and features a collaborative cover by Sammy Harkham and Guy Davis, as well as Kim Deitch on the meaning of life and a list by Renee French. Tim is slowly (?) losing his mind while finishing his essay on Steve Gerber and I’m having paranoid thoughts while finishing my “What Went Wrong With the Masters of American Comics Exhibition” diatribe. It’ll be out in June, debut at MoCCA, and blow your minds.
In the meantime, I’m please to write that last Wednesday’s event at the fabulous Issue Project Room was amazing. Amy Lockhart’s films wowed the crowd and then Matthew Thurber’s Ambergris blew the doors off the place. While Thurber and compatriot Rebecca Bird warbled and whistled I unrolled a spectacular scroll drawn by the Thurber himself. Those of you who haven’t bought the first issue of his 1-800 MICE should run out and get it now.
After Ambergris came Gary Panter and Devin Flynn. Now, Gary hadn’t played in public in a few decades, but as some of you may know, has released a couple of records and a handful of seven inches. Fun fact: Ian McClagen of The Faces played in Gary’s first record, Pray for Smurph (1983). It’s a stone cold classic of skronk psych-country music. Devin Flynn is half of Pixeltan and an accomplished animator whose work can be seen on big and small screens. Together, well, they laid it down, man. While Devin thumped and keyed and bass-ed Gary let loose on the guitar with some serious Texas-style chops and a dry, high plains yelp. When he sings “I fought the Lord” I kinda think he might’ve, inbetween painting, drawing, and duding. One audience member called the performance “masculine”, and I think it kinda was. Well, when his big books comes out maybe we’ll send him on tour with his gee-tar.
Anyhow, it was a fine night, and we hope to do it again real soon!
From Dan’s press release:
It’s the rock-n-art event of the year! Or at least the month!
Yes, PictureBox, together with Issue Project Room, presents an evening of book/art related entertainment.
Musical sets by:
–Gary Panter and Devin Flynn
This is Gary’s first live show since before you were born. You know Cream? It’ll be like that.
–Matthew Thurber/Ambergris
Thurber put together a rock combo for this one. You know Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd? It’ll be like that.
And films by Amy Lockhart! Do you know goodness? It will be so.
All happening at 8 pm, April 18th.
Issue Project Room
400 Carroll Street
between Bond and Nevins
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Telephone: 718-330-0313
$10
Come rock with us. (Oh and posters by Gary will be for sale, as well as other goodies!)
All right, Dan’s in France, and I haven’t read any comics that have inspired me to write in what seems like forever. Which means it’s half-assed quiz time. My high-school German is extremely rusty. Have any of you ever heard of this book? Because if this description is correct (“a pseudo-art-historical treatise on the paintings found in the backgrounds of Donald Duck comics”), then I am curious.
In other Euro news, many of you are probably already aware of it, but I’ve really been enjoying the Danish metabunker blog. The long interviews with rappers and the like I mostly skip, but Matthias Wivel writes very intelligently about comics.
As you may remember, I love letters pages. So, in that great comic book tradition, we plan to institute a “letters to the editor” section in future issues of Comics Comics.
Were you angered by Paper Rad’s attack on art comics in the first issue? Impressed by Dan’s thoughts on the Wally Wood/Ogden Whitney connection? Do you feel compelled to defend Spider-Man from Peter Bagge in issue two? Do you have a bone to pick with one of our reviews, or an interview you’d like to praise? Whatever your thoughts, positive or otherwise, about anything related to Comics Comics, we’d love to hear them.
Thanks! If you submit a letter, please include your name, location, and phone number, and be aware that we may publish it (meaning the letter, not the phone number), either in the magazine or potentially on this site. Letters may be edited for space or clarity.
E-mail:
thodlerATgmailDOTcom
Mailing address:
Comics Comics Letters
PictureBox
121 Third Street
Ground Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11231
