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Hello and welcome to CC weekend edition. I’m your host – Frankie The Wop. In an effort to understand what it takes to achieve Tom Spurgeon level of comics bloggerdom – I have moved to New Mexico. Spurge is at 6200 feet above sea level and I think that it’s the air up here that makes looking out beyond the frontier of comics possible. Wait, what? I dunno what the fuck I’m talking about. I’m high as shit and it ain’t from the altitude. The holiday season has begun. I got nuthin’ this week. (more…)

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Coffee and Conversation at DAP

An excuse: Well, it’s been a week of nothing but Brian Chippendale and CF for me. I just put the boys in a cab to JFK and tonight they will be at Floating World Comics in Portland OR, for a party and interview with Matt Fraction. Tomorrow night they’ll be at Family in Los Angeles. Let me say this: Their slide shows are pretty damn great, and not to be missed. It goes on… Just to keep the fun going, here are a couple brand new interviews with Chippendale at Inkstuds and Arthur. Compare and contrast and see if he contradicts or repeats himself. Try it at home!

An item: I direct your attention over to Same Hat, where CC pal Ryan Holmberg is doing some group research on Lone Wolf and Cub writer Koike Kazuo. Apparently he also wrote a Hulk comic book for the Japanese market in the 1970s. I would like to read that.

A recommendation: I love Denys Wortman’s New York. It’s a beautifully produced book of this forgotten cartoonist’s vivid NYC-observed cartoons. The drawings are nuanced and yet amazingly muscular and gritty. I’d never seen the work before and found myself completely absorbed in Wortman’s bygone world. Great drawings and a great historical presentation by James Sturm and Brandon Elston. Kudos to D&Q for supporting such a wonderful project. There is a an exhibition on now at The Museum of the City of New York, which I look forward to checking out asap.

End on a stupid note: A very brief “Dapper Dan’s SuperMovies Column”: Let me just say: The Green Lantern trailer totally blows, except for the monster dude that looks like the Elephant Man. That part is cool. But does everything have to be a wise cracking hunk who grows up and finds responsibility? It’s creepy! And why are ALL sci-fi sets seemingly designed by the same boring people? I want more architectural phalluses and glistening drops of liquid, not boring faux-cities. Well, the boys and I hold out hope for Darren Aronofsky’s Wolverine movie. That should be good.

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Say hey, we’re talking today!

Come see Brian Chippendale and C.F. release their new books into the world at 4 pm on Sunday, Nov. 14 at Ada Books in Providence, R.I. They will be inaugurating their almighty slide show talks in which they will reveal all of their secrets. I will be there nervously standing to the side, wondering what kind of vegan food I’ll be eating for dinner. The tour then rolls on, my friends, as you can see below (and yes, you’re reading that correctly, the boys will be interviewed by Matt Fraction in Portland OR).

PROVIDENCE, RI: ADA BOOKS: NOV. 14, 4 pm. Slideshow and signing

NEW YORK, NY, THE STRAND: NOV. 18, 7 pm. Slideshow and signing

PORTLAND, OR: FLOATING WORLD COMICS: NOV. 19, 6 pm, Signing, slideshow and special live interview by Matt Fraction

LOS ANGELES, CA: FAMILY: NOV. 20, 8:15 pm, Slideshow and signing

TORONTO, ON: THE BEGUILING: DEC. 2, 7 pm, Slideshow and signing

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PictureBox will be in two places at once this weekend: SPX in Bethesda, MD and the Brooklyn Book Festival in NYC!

First: We will be at SPX in Bethesda, MD, tables G5-G8. Frank will of course be occupying one table, foisting his epic back issue selection on you, the unsuspecting yet increasingly discerning consumer!

There will be many wonderful things at PBox for you to blow your cash on:

-We will be hosting Brian Ralph and Paul Lyons as they launch the new issue of Monster, featuring work by Brinkman, Chippendale, CF, Drain, Goldberg, and many others.

-Advance copies of Renee French’s H Day and Julie Doucet and Michel Gondry’s My New New York Diary for sale!

–Karl Wirsum: Drawings 1967-70 – A deluxe oversize new catalog from the master accompanying the exhibition I curated at Derek Eller Gallery, NYC.

–Garo Manga: The First Decade – Ryan Holmberg’s essential history

-A new zine by Matthew Thurber and Billy Grant

-Yuichi Yokoyama’s BABYBOOMFINAL – Yokoyama’s insane art/comics heavyweight tome

-Our full line of vintage Brazilian porn

-Deep and dark publications from the Paris house United Dead Artists, including Permagel by Charles Burns

-And because no one except Jason Miles asked for it: Complete runs of the early 1980s classic: New York City Outlaws!

-We will also have one, that’s right, ONE, copy of If ‘n Oof for you to ogle and be amazed by.

If that wasn’t enough, we will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, with all of the above, and more! Come see us in Suburban D.C. or downtown Brooklyn.

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Guess!

You should stay inside this weekend and enjoy some nice, fun comics!

1) Brian Chippendale’s new weekly web comic, Puke Force, has launched over at PictureBox. Check it out, and remember, “read it like a snake”. Brian’s 800-page If ‘n Oof will hit stores and subscribers in early October!

2) Tom Kraft has just unleashed the new version of his web site, What if Kirby. It’s a massive collection of original Jack Kirby art, beautifully scanned and silhouetted, and viewable at various magnifications. Forthcoming features includes notes from scholars and inkers, as well as some text from yours truly. Congrats to Tom — a super generous dude and good company when we were at Fumetto. There are other sites with hi-res art (like Heritage), but this is the first dedicated to a single artist, complete with annotations, etc. To me, this is the beginning of an invaluable resource. A particular favorite of mine is this collage from 2001.

3) I’m pleased to pass along some Johnny Dynamite news: Movie interest in Johnny Dynamite has been stirred by a Max Allan Collins screenplay based on his and Terry Beatty’s graphic novel. Collins and Beatty are the kind copyright holders of the Johnny Dynamite characters and stories, including those featured in Art in Time. My thanks for their support.

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Judging from Frank’s most recent posts, he’s spending this month swimming and drinking, which is the way to play it in August. Sadly, I have no pool and I get drunk really easily, so I went to art galleries instead. Lucky for me, though, I discovered a small show of lithographs, woodcuts, and linocuts by the great and massively influential H.C. Westermann at George Adams Gallery. In addition to a few superb color works, such as Red Deathship, from 1967 . . .

. . . the show includes his “Disasters in the Sky” series, small black-and-white linocuts that depict futuristic cities and horrific plane crashes.

The mask-like faces, like the one above, resemble Basil Wolverton’s grim, rubbery caricatures. Some from this series seem to suggest a narrative, and I thought of wordless novels, like Laurence Hyde’s Southern Cross and any one of Lynd Ward’s books. Westermann, Hyde, and Ward all wrote/drew tales with a political, antimilitary stance. The city’s undulating architecture and elevated, snaking roadways made me think of Jimbo‘s La Bufadora, which would be a great place to spend the summer—poolside clambakes, robot fights, special group rates. (more…)

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Last month, I wrote an essay for an online magazine about Birgit Jürgenssen, an Austrian feminist artist whose heyday was in the ’70s and ’80s. In 1994, she issued a booklet called BICASSO Jürgenssen. (It looks exactly like the kind of hand-drawn, simple zines Nieves publishes.) Turns out it’s a facsimile edition of a journal she kept in 1957, when she was 8. She’s unschooled as an artist (she’s 8, so yeah), but in copying works by Picasso—hence the conflation of her name and his to create “Bicasso”—she’s clearly trying to work out some basic ideas while also exercising her imagination. BICASSO Jürgenssen made me think of Brian Chippendale’s Ninja, which incorporates drawings he did in sixth grade into a larger story completed nearly two decades later. All of this made me wonder if there are other comics that are similarly built around work or ideas from childhood.

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Well, my favorite comics critic (ahem, present company excepted), Brian Chippendale, is currently on the road in his other role as Lightning Bolt hammer god. While on the road he’s frantically approving proofs for If ‘n Oof, which, yes, sir, is at press! All 800 pages of it, all flexi-bound with spot varnish and funky endpapers and oh so much more. Sir Dustin Harbin was even kind enough to receive a FedEx of proofs for Chipps and deliver it right to his sweaty hands! Phew. Anyhow, here’s a killer video of Brian in action, the night before he approve the final files for the cover. Note the July 4th fireworks.

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Hey there, True Believers, it’s that time again! Time for Brian Chippendale’s Marvelous Coma blog to drop the hammer on all your wednesday comic book shoppe fantasies! Brian has served up yet another installment of his home cooking, and holy shit, it’s hot!. Check it out!

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Wait, New Comics Day is Thursday this Week? Shit!

Erstwhile internet pest Brynocki C also goes by the name Brian Chippendale. And it is under the latter guise that he is opening a solo exhibition of new work at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, Friday, June 4. Reception begins at 7 pm. Come see him and be sure to ask him about Master of Kung Fu. On a lighter note (sort of) Chipps has finished If ‘n Oof. 800 pages of sheer joy coming your way in September. We swear!