They’re Creepy And They’re Kooky

Coming home from a birthday party the other night I noticed an advertisement on the blue line train. It was a poster for The Addams Family, a new musical opening up here in Chicago this month. Since then I’ve seen other advertisements for the show on the tops of taxis and sides of buses, all in the same general style. The ad campaign for the show struck me as unusual. The background is a simple maroon color with subtle texture meant to mimic old, cracked walls. A golden picture frame hanging from a nail is dead center and within that frame, an Addams family portrait taken straight from a Charles Addams cartoons. The title of the show lies over the image in Addams’ own handwriting, while the rest of the text is in the font most recognizably used by The New Yorker, where Addams’ cartoons ran for over fifty years.

I was struck by this poster design for two reasons. Almost never in my life have I seen an ad campaign for an adapted work that points so loudly and so obviously back to its source material. It was like this poster was screaming, “THIS SHOW WAS INSPIRED BY A CARTOON! YOU KNOW, BY THAT CHARLES ADDAMS GUY?? YOU MAY HAVE SEEN IT IN THE NEW YORKER!” Needless to say, living in Chicago, I’ve seen a lot of advertisements for big musicals and many of those have been adapted from stories in other media. Everyone is familiar with shows adapted from popular movies (such as Broadway’s long-running The Lion King) or literature (such as the staggeringly popular Wicked). I would even venture to guess that most people are familiar with the imagery associated with the advertisements for both of those shows. Lion King’s promotional imagery recalled that of the original animation but also developed its own distinct aesthetic of black silhouettes against vibrant backgrounds. Wicked’s signature reproduction of a very green Elphaba with her floppy black hat and devilish smirk can be recognized nearly anywhere, making the text advertising the show almost unnecessary. Both of these poster designs have become iconic, needing no further explanation than that of the image. Does our Addams Family poster have the same potential? Absolutely not. Strip this ad of its copy and context and all you have is a Charles Addams cartoon.

Poster advertising The Addams Family musical opening in Chicago this November

The other puzzling thing about this poster design is the complete omission of any other Addams Family related imagery. As a child the bottom shelf of the bookcase next to my bedroom door held an array of comics including Calvin & Hobbes, Gary Larson’s The Far Side, some work by Edward Gorey and an anthology of Charles Addams. One of the other things at my childhood eye-level were the stacks of back issues of The New Yorker that lived under the end table in my family’s living room. I used to go through every issue, page by page, looking for the cartoons. As a result I was very aware of Charles Addams’ charmingly macabre family as a series of odd single-panel cartoons, but at least for my generation, I might be somewhat of an anomaly. You’d have to have been living under a rock to only associate the Addams Family with Addams’ New Yorker comics. Since the 1960s sitcom starring John Astin and featuring that incredibly catchy theme song, the Addams Family has been a strong part of the cultural awareness. Over the years, the comic has inspired two live-action televisions shows, two animated shows, four films and six video games. So why this promotional poster for the musical that points so specifically to the original cartoons? It may relate to the fact that the rights to the characters were granted to the theatrical production by the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation. According to this New York Post article, the Addams estate was adamant that the musical be based solely on Addams’ original cartoons. “They have complete control over just about everything on this show, and they rule with an iron fist,” the article states.

The idea that one could have an Addams Family musical based solely on the cartoons seems almost unreasonable to me. Even the names of the characters, while invented by Charles Addams, were created specifically for the 1960s television show. In the original cartoons the family members were not named, and the single-panel format left very little room for any kind of extended narrative. At this point in history, I have trouble believing that the idea of the Addams Family can properly be separated from that of television sitcoms, or the Saturday morning cartoons, or feature films starring Tim Curry. How can the writers, the actors or the designers of this show separate their preconceived notions of the Addams Family from this show? It hardly seems possible. All of that aside, I can’t imagine who thought it was a good idea to have an Addams Family musical that did not include the famous theme song. This was one of a few critiques after the mostly well received invitation-only reading that happened in January of this year. According to another New York Post article, those reactions caused the production to contact Vic Mizzy for the rights to his catchy theme song, so perhaps it will be included after all.

The idea that this musical is to be based only on the cartoons and asks the audience to forget all that they already know about the famous Addams family seems silly, and not a good enough reason to sacrifice what could have been a really awesome poster design. The show is set to move on to Broadway in April and I’ll be very interested to see if they will use to same promotional material in New York. Despite my misgivings on the show’s advertising campaign, the show looks like it’s gonna be a good one – just look at this fantastic cast photo in Vanity Fair! I’m excited to see some fantastic Victorian and Gothic-revival inspired set designs and some wild costumes and make up. Early reviews of the show say that, although it lacks any especially catchy tunes, it’s peppered with a lot of great humor and with Nathan Lane as the family patriarch, Gomez, I’ve got particularly high hopes for this show.

Speaking of which, anybody want to go see a musical with me??

Congratulations To Nate Powell!

I don’t need to tell you how great Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole is. The book won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel, was named a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and more recently, Powell has been named the 2009 Ignatz Award Winner for Outstanding Artist!! So yeah, I probably don’t have to talk about how damn great this book is, but for those of you who haven’t heard yet (hi, Mom!) I’m going to go into it anyway.

I meant to write about this book ages ago. I received a stack of books off my wishlist at Christmas last year and this one was the absolutely first one I read. The story is about step-siblings Ruth and Perry, both of whom hear voices and see things that may not be there. The two form a strong bond early on in the story. Probably one of my favorite images of the whole book is of the two, having stayed out all night, sneaking back into their respective bedrooms through the windows and exchanging quick “I love yous” as they do. But as the story continues the two begin to drift apart. Perry puts away his artwork, gets a girlfriend and begins acting more “normal” than Ruth, whose schizophrenia becomes more apparent and harder to control.

Swallow Me Whole, by Nate Powell

Powell’s artwork is beautiful. The majority of  his images are extremely high contrast with bright white figures shining through inky blacks. The heavy shading and deep blacks set the tone for a book of somewhat somber subject matter. Though to a large extent Swallow Me Whole is a coming of age story, it also is a story about aging, death and mental illness. In a Robot6 interview with Tim O’Shea, Powell stresses the fact that his book is not “about” mental disorders and mentions challenge of telling this kind of story ”without exploiting the nature of mental disorders for the sake of narrative.” I think he is quite successful at using his own techniques without exploiting element of the story. He manages to shift from traditional square-panel sequences into unconventional layouts and full-bleeds seamlessly to create the book’s own visual language.

One of my favorite parts of this book is most certainly the lettering. Powell’s handwriting flows in and out of all caps to all lowercase to cursive as the characters interact, enhancing the mood of each page. I can almost hear their tone of voice in the words, which is an accomplishment. I know I’ve said this here before but I will say it again and continue to do so until my breath runs out: people need to be hand lettering. The words are as much a part of the page as the images, and every time I see someone using a stock font pasted into their beautiful artwork, a part of me dies. A jarring contrast between an art style and a font style is enough to pull a reader right out of the story. Comics are supposed to be a language, and in this piece, Powell fucking nails it. Swallow Me Whole’s fluid artwork and morphing lettering style make the words inseparable from the pictures. That’s what making comics is supposed to be about, right? Creating a language with words and pictures? At least, that’s what I thought the point was.

I had the pleasure of meeting Nate Powell at SPX this year and I must say he was just one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. Just look at the guy’s picture at the top of this Newsarama interview. Doesn’t he just look like a swell guy? Well, he is. As soon as I got home from SPX I reread his book and it was even better the second time. Powell’s got a couple short stories up on Top Shelf 2.0 where you can see his dark expressionistic style for free so check that out. He’s also very involved in the music scene and runs a record label, Harlan Records. How he finds time to make music AND all this awesome art is totally beyond me. See how awesome he is? You should probably buy his book.

What I Learned At SPX 2009

In case nobody picked up on this: I have been out of town for a million years going all over the place on what I guess is some kind of crazy “cartooning pilgrimage.” After seeing some art school and a whole lot of comic shops I ended my tour at SPX, making it the very first convention I have ever attended. People have told me will ruin all other conventions for me because SPX is so awesome, and while I cannot say for certain how I will approach other conventions, I can say definitively that yes, SPX was so fucking awesome.

I got there on Friday night to find myself with a six pack of beer and no bottle opener. So I head next door to ask raucous bunch whom I can hear through the wall if they have one. That’s how I end up at a hotel party graciously hosted by two very talented dudes, Dustin Harbin and Scott Campbell. I also met a lot of dudes who do stuff other than make comics but are also very talented, including Leigh Walton, Jeff Newlett and Brain Heater. Everyone was really friendly to me and I am doing an absolutely terrible job of describing this party to you so y’all better just head on over to Dustin Harbin’s blog where he does a much better job of it. After drinking a bit and meeting some people, I met up with Dan Hill and stayed up way too late so that the next morning I had not slept enough at all and was pretty much nonfunctional. AND SO THE SHOW BEGINS! I learned a whole hell of a lot about conventions within the first twenty minutes of being there:

*Bring food. Because there won’t be much around and what is there is probably boring and/or gross. Plus everyone likes picnics.

*Make a sign for your table the night before because making one in the morning while everyone is setting up is a huge pain in the ass.

*Don’t put the most text-heavy piece you have in the very front of your minicomic. People pick them up and look at the first page and a block of text is just going to make them put it right back down.

*Have something to say about your work, a summary or a mission statement or something. Dan had a little speech about his comics all planned out and it gave people an idea of what they were looking at. I just kind of stumbled over words like, “Oh it’s…um, like kind of autobiography but not…exactly…,” which makes my work sound…well, bad.

*Bring money. Like, way more money than you think you should. I had this whole plan about the convention, I had a list in my head of all the books I wanted to pick up, mostly print versions of my favorite webcomics and books that had gotten good reviews that I hadn’t gotten the chance to pick up. As soon as I walked out onto the floor that plan went RIGHT out the window. Those books I want to get? I’ll get them. The webcomics I read? I can and will buy their stuff online. But at SPX I met a billion talented artist I’d never heard of, selling minicomics that serve as a sampler or introduction to their work. So instead of buying maybe three or four big things that I’m going to get anyway, I spent all my money on tons and tons of little things. And nearly everyone wanted to TRADE, too, which means I got even more….I came home with some many minicomics I need a damn file cabinet for all of them or something (seriously, where do people put all these?).

*If you have not slept all night, don’t try talking to people. Especially people you look up to. You will end up saying something totally stupid/nonsensical.

By the end of the first day I had bought next to nothing because I was so zoned out from sleep deprivation. I had sold ten minicomics for $1, bringing me ever so close to the $12 goal I had set at the beginning of the weekend. I’d also spent some time chatting with the other kids at my table: Kenan Rubenstin, whose black and white panels detailed with careful hatching are really quite breathtaking, and Caitlin McGurk, whose librarian’s desire for research has led her to making illustrated field guides (I picked up A Field-guide To Edible Roadside Plants, I can’t wait for the one on black metal!).

After a much needed nap I headed to the Ignatz awards which felt a lot less like an award show and more like a group of old friends getting together. I started to pick up on why everyone I’d met had been referring to SPX as “nerd sleepaway camp.” There really were very few people from the public attending the show, and the whole thing seemed like an excuse for comic artists and fans to get together and hang out and show each other what they’ve been working on. After the awards I wound up taking part in my first ever comics jam in a large group including but not limited to B. T. Livermore, Darryl Ayo Brathwaite and the 2009 Ignatz Award winner for Outstanding Artist, Nate Powell. Darryl had even heard of Owlex before so that really made my day. Then it was off to hotel #2 at the Dharbin/Scott C. residence, which Dustin talks about right here and if you follow that link and scroll to to the bottom you can see a pretty fantastic picture of myself and Scott Campbell posing with a beautiful, talented and sleeping Kate Beaton.

The second day of the show involved a lot more buying minicomics. I picked one of I Know Joe Kimpel’s 4Square books, the second issue of Dustin Harbin’s Dharbin!, a few by this kid Bill Volk that I went to college with, and two collections of a comic called One Year In Indiana about a metal band by a guy named Kurt Dinse that I am particularly excited about. I also made some awesome trades with S. Dave Shabet for part one of Dead Winter and with Ethan Rilly for The Nervous Party. I was very pleased to discover that Ethan Rilly is the nicest dude ever! Really the best part of this show was how friendly and outgoing everyone was, which isn’t exactly stereotypical for cartoonists.

After the show ended on Sunday I made my way back to DC to meet a friend for dinner, really wiped out and already excited for next year. At the next SPX I hope to be better prepared, with more stuff to sell and more to say about it. Also, hopefully I’ll be more well rested so as to not come off like an idiot/zombie to all the professionals I meet.

The Center For Cartoon Studies

Last week I left my sister’s place and got on a train that left me off eight hours later in a tiny town I’d never been to, in which I knew no one. It was a daunting feeling, but it soon subsided. My favorite part of White River Junction, VT (home of the Center for Cartoon Studies) is how welcome the people there make you feel.

The Center for Cartoon Studies, as shown in their "How To" Guidebook

The CCS was founded in 2005 by James Sturm and Michelle Ollie in an old department store on WRJ’s Main Street. It offers one- and two-year certificate programs and a two-year MFA program in Cartooning. On my tour I saw their small gallery space, classroom, studios (free screenprinting – wtf?!), and their impressive Charles M. Schultz Library of comics, art and comics-related literature located in an old Firehouse. The facilities here were impressive, as was the work the students were producing. You can find work by CCS students and alumni at I Know Joe Kimpel if you don’t believe me.

During my visit I stayed in the Hotel Coolidge, an adorable (though occasionally Shining-esque) hotel with a hostel section that serves as a dormitory for the school. Located a few doors down from the hotel is the region’s only professional theater, and nearby there is the Tip Top Media building that houses artists studios (currently housing a painter, sculptor and mask maker from what I could tell). So it would seem this small town is really full of art and creativity. The advantage of the location, I suppose, is the low level of distraction from your work. While the town is located just a few hours from Boston or Montreal, I get the feeling that the long Vermont winters diminish the ease of such excursions, leaving people very little to do outside of make cartoons and tie a couple on at the local bar: CJ’s at Than Wheeler’s.

The C is Christine. The J is Joe. They’re engaged and have a ten-week-old black lab puppy named Liberty. These are all things I learned within the first twenty minutes of sitting at the bar. The people in White River Junction were friendly as hell. I was extended warm greetings and friendly conversation by Mary while I had coffee at the Polka Dot Diner the next morning, and later by Jane, over my bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin at her restaurant, Elixir. I don’t think I met a single person who wasn’t nice to me. Maybe I am just not used to a small town environment, but I was a little astounded by it.

On my last night in town I finally met some of the “toonies,” as the locals call them. They were equally friendly and happy to share their experiences and opinions of their school that I’ve been considering attending. I had a few drinks with them and maybe overdid it a little so hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself. Among these people was Cat Garza, who this weekend won an Ignatz award for Outstanding Online Comic for his Year of the Rat, so congratulations to him!

All around it seemed like an excellent place turning out excellent artists. The town, while small, still has a few things to offer including the Tip Top Cafe, an upscale restaurant I rather enjoyed, and the Tuckerbox, a coffeehouse with free internet and excellent sandwiches that always seems full of cartoonists and students and artsy folk. It’s the kind of place I could see myself spending a few years working with their outstanding faculty (including Jason Lutes, Stephen Bissette, and James Kochalka to name a few). After seeing two schools I am beginning to hope that I only get into one of them, thus avoiding the problem of choosing between the two. They’re so different but both have so much to offer.

The SVA And Review Of Rabid Rabbit #9

While in New York I stopped by the School of Visual Arts to learn a little more about their Illustration as Visual Essay MFA program. I was met with by department head Marshall Arisman, who was incredibly friendly and enthusiastic and made me feel much less nervous about what was basically an informal interview. Unfortunately I think I may have gotten too comfortable and said a few things I probably shouldn’t have (I think I used the word “shit” once, called the art world pretentious, and I even used air quotes once – what the hell is wrong with me?!). At any rate at least they can’t say I wasn’t being genuine and hopefully enough of the good parts of my personality were apparent so as to outshine the awkward parts of my personality. Their facilities were very nice. Exactly forty studios (twenty for first year students, twenty for second year students) were arranged cubicle style in a room with a gorgeous view of the city. It is only the beginning of their school year but already there was some pretty impressive art up on the walls, I have to admit I felt a little bit intimidated. What I got out of my visit was a more defined idea of what the program was all about: a community of artists who are interested in storytelling. I like the idea of being surrounded, not just by cartoonists but also painters and illustrators working using different techniques, but confronting similar narrative issues and dealing with similar concepts. I also liked that graduate students at the SVA can audit undergrad classes in several different departments, which sounds like it could be a lot of fun at a school that teaches such a wide variety of disciplines.

I left the SVA excited at the prospect of going to art school in New York City and with tons of free crap they gave me. I received a 40+ minute DVD on the program, introducing faculty members and outlining the program, a copy of a student-run art magazine and issues #4, #8, #9 and #10 of Rabid Rabbit, a non-profit comics anthology showcasing several New York artists. Each issue has a theme, and my favorite was #9, “The Horror of Rabid Rabbit.”

Back cover of Rabid Rabbit #9

This issue’s theme is “horror” which is interpreted in different ways by the artists. The content of the pieces range from cheesy horror films, to killer lawn gnomes to shark attacks…others involve day-to-day horrors (such as using the toilet only to find there is no toilet paper left). There’s also a particularly horrifying piece about rape, so the issue really covers the entire spectrum from silly to serious. I was pleased to find work by Adam Kidder, whom I have mentioned before on this blog. By far my favorite story in the issue (and also possibly the most horrifying) was “The Horror Within” by Rabid Rabbit’s Editor-In-Chief, C. M. Butzer. The story is about scientists in the antarctic who discover an ancient parasite that burrows deep within their colleague’s body and basically takes control of him. It’s creepy and disgusting and absolutely horrifying. Butzer also contributed to a gorgeous and horrifying center-spread of zombies and demons and all things horror. You can check out his portfolio on his website, Butzer’s a really talented artists and I was happy to discover him through this small collection.

Flipping through Rabid Rabbit also gave me a better idea of what kind of standard the students of the SVA are being held to, and whether or not I could raise my work to that level of quality. I think that I could, or at least I hope so. Step #1 is to apply.

Review: Pope Hats

So I’m here in Brooklyn visiting my sister Sadie. She happens to live down the street from one of the coolest indie-friendly comic book shops in New York, Desert Island. This place reminds me a bit of Quimby’s in Chicago, with a good mix of DIY-type zines, original art and more popular “graphic novels.” So I strolled on over there this afternoon while Sadie was in class to chat with them about selling my own minis there on consignment. While there I picked up Smoke Signal #2, an all-comics newspaper put out every few months by the owner of Desert Island, Gabe Fowler. It seems like a pretty cool mix of up-and-coming artists and other lesser-known local artists. This issue has a cover by Dash Shaw (Bottomless Bellybutton, BodyWorld). I also picked up a copy of Ethan Rilly’s Pope Hats.

Frances battles demons in Pope Hats

Pope Hats is a short story about Frances Scarland, a seemingly aimless young girl working as a law clerk. She shares an apartment with an alcoholic actress, Vickie, in a Canadian city (perhaps Toronto where Rilly himself lives, or maybe Montreal – Frances mentions at one point that she just dropped out of McGill). Franny appears to be plagued by a lot of things. She has trouble sleeping at night and might have a little bit of social anxiety. She’s also being haunted by an “obsessive phantom” named Scarsgaard. He’s not very good at haunting though, and is more of an annoyance to Franny than anything else. The second half of this comic is tightly focused on Franny as she tells two ghost stories, so perhaps run-ins with the supernatural have become sort of old hat for her. I’m not sure, but I’m hoping to learn more about her in the second issue.

The art in Pope Hats is fantastic, very fluid and natural. Rilly makes this shit look easy. His dialogue also has a very natural feel to it. Franny and Vickie almost seem real, like people I might have met someplace. It’s a shame this first issue is so short, I’d really like to get to know these girls a little better. I’m very curious about all of the characters in this story and would like to know some other things about this book as well (like why the hell it’s called Pope Hats). All around this is a very promising debut comic for Rilly. Part of the story was published as a minicomic in 2007 but it’s most recent run happened earlier this year with much help from the 2008 Xeric grant Rilly received. Here are some things other people said about it:

“Pope Hats has some of the most interesting and funny characters I’ve seen this side of Scott Pilgrim, but they’re much more realistic.” — Box Brown

“Pope Hats by Ethan Rilly is the most impressive debut comic I’ve seen in years. The work has that deceptive quality of ease about it—the characters breeze across the page with sparkling dialogue and wonderfully observed gestures.” –Seth (Wimbeldon Green, It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken)

Cartoonist Of The Moment: Meredith Gran

Octopus Pie is one of the few webcomics that, rather than just kind of stumbling upon it, I actively made the decision to start reading it. Pretty much every other webcomic I read had a link to Meredith Gran’s site someplace and I’d clicked those links a few times but never really got into it. The night I finally determined to see what all the fuss was about, I was astounded that it had taken me so long. You guys, Octopus Pie is phenomenal.

Octopus Pie is sort of an Odd Couple type story. The story takes place in Brooklyn, where Gran herself resided until her recent move to Portland, Oregon. Its basic premise is that the main character, Eve Ning, is broken up with by her boyfriend and now she needs a new roommate. Eve’s meddling mother leases Eve’s vacant room in her Brooklyn apartment to Hanna Thompson, an old classmate from Eve’s preschool days. The two turn out to be a very unlikely pair, with Eve being a little more structured and uptight and Hanna being more of a hippie, stoner and part-time nudist. Though different, it becomes obvious that these two begin to share an important friendship and truly care about one another, and as the comic continues their habits and ideas start to rub off on each other. Isn’t that heartwarming? (It  is).

Eve has got a pretty typical post-college job, working at an organic grocery for an incompetent and overbearing boss (you can buy Olly’s Organix tote bags, which has always cracked me up, right here), while Hanna’s post college job is a little more interesting. Hanna runs her own business through the internet called Bake N’ Bake. She sells baked confections that she makes well, while she’s baked! Eve is a little judgmental about this at first but she seems to get over it as the comic goes on. Hanna’s business partner, her boyfriend Marek, may have had something to do with this, having attempted to teach Eve that “Everybody judges. Except for the duck, who seeks only bread.” A revelation that makes little sense to her at the time, but eventually sinks in later.

Eve Ning has a philosophical epiphany in Octopus Pie

Undoubtedly my favorite storyline in Octopus Pie has been “Tag.” This storyline begins with the revelation that Hanna has never been introduced to Eve’s asian friends because they are all – stereotypically – nerds! The introduction of Eve’s nerd friends to a group of Hanna’s stoner friends results in a conflict that there could be only one civil way to settle… LASER TAG! The rest of the storyline involves a lot of funny visual gags and sound-effects, and a couple great one-liners (“Stoners, not Pwners” being my favorite). This storyline also involves a lot of hilarious drama, with people switching sides and betraying their team members, and a whole lot of terrific art. This storyline is unique to the rest of the comic in that involves a lot of action sequences. I think these pages of the comic show us that Gran’s work is pretty versatile and that she can do a lot with it.

The art of Octopus Pie has a very charming cartoony quality that I find matches its cheeky, good-natured humor. Gran does the penciling, toning and lettering using a Wacom Cintiq and Manga Studio, and about halfway through the comic she started doing the inking by hand. I wasn’t familiar with Manga Studio before I started reading this comic, but have since then becom intrigued. Gran often broadcasts the creation of the comic via Ustream so you can watch exactly how she makes it as she’s doing it. If you don’t want to wait around for her next Ustream (which she notifies people of via her Twitter account) you can watch this video of her process in Manga Studio (set to “Atlas” by Battles).

I think the reason it took me so long to finally get into this comic was the fact that it’s not one of those comics where there’s a simple, slapstick joke in each strip. A lot of the humor of the comic is heavily reliant on the readers’ familiarity with the characters, so you need to read a few storylines before you really get hooked. It’s like a really great TV show in that way, I guess. You can watch one episode of Mad Men and think, “Wow this is really visually appealing and well-produced…but who the fuck are all these people and why do I care?” It’s only a truly great show once you’re already addicted. Same deal with Octopus Pie. With that in mind, I suggest reading it from the beginning rather than starting in the middle.

I make the comparison to TV for this comic because, in my personal opinion, TV  is more fun to watch on DVD… I have the habit of specifically NOT watching a show while it’s on TV so that I can wait until it comes out on DVD and watch it all in one go. Gran is doing a similar thing with her comic, posting on the site a few weeks ago to say, “…constant deadlines, while good for productivity, also tend to limit the sort of stories and pictures I’d like to create. …So, starting with the next storyline, Octopus Pie is going to start updating in larger, story-based chunks. Which means, depending on the length of the story, the comic will update every couple of weeks, or every month or so, with a brand new, multi-page chapter.”

It’s been about a month since she posted that, and ever since I have SO been looking forward to sitting down and reading the new storyline all at once. I think it’s very brave of her to say “Fuck it!” to the endless deadlines and create her comic on her own pace, to bring us work that’s she’s happy with. That obviously was not an easy decision because there’s a lot of pressure on artists with such a large following as hers. She’s made the quality of her work more of a priority than meeting a schedule and I commend her. Word on the line is, the new storyline is scheduled to be posted Monday (tomorrow), and I am so excited! (Obviously, I’m making no effort to hide it).

So if you haven’t read the comic yet, get caught up today and get ready for the new storyline!

Anthology: I Saw You…

I don’t know about most of you, but when I am bored or feeling the need to procrastinate, I find myself wandering over to Craigslist personal ads to read the missed connections. Some of them are creepy to the point of being hilarious, others are just heartbreaking. There will even be a few, sometimes, that make me wonder if the ad could possibly be for me; “Wait, I go to that coffee shop…was I there on Tuesday? What was I wearing?” The Julia Wertz edited I Saw You… is a collection of comics based on missed connection ads on Craigslist and other similar sites/newspapers that describe anonymous encounters. Because the nature of these ads tends to vary, so do these comics. Some are funny, some sad, and some unexpectedly heartwarming.

I Saw You..., an anthology edited by Julia Wertz

You may know Julia Wertz from her autobiographical comic series, The Fart Party, which started off about her life in San Fransisco but is currently about her new life in Brooklyn, NY. The artwork and narrative of the comic tends to vary a bit; sometimes her characters will appear as stick figures, other times they are more detailed. The comics usually comics describe her day-to-day life though occasionally they will be more awkwardly self-referential. Some of Wertz’s work that is not posted on her website was collected in a book published by Atomic books in 2007.

Because so many artists contributed to I Saw You… it holds a variety of different artwork and content, ensuring that almost everyone will either love of hate at least one of the stories. The collection functions as a sort of “sampler pack” of today’s up-and-coming cartoonists. I enjoyed flipping through the book and discovering new artists I’d not previously been exposed to, such as the wonderfully talented, Chicago-based Laura Park. Other artists were more familiar to me, such as 2007 CCS Fellowship winner Ken Dahl, or Keith Knight whose work I instantly recognized as having been part of the Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics exhibition that was at the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL last winter (contributor Shaenon Garrity was also featured in the exhibition).

Something I really enjoyed about this anthology was that so many Chicago artists were represented, and many of the stories took place in my big beautiful city. It was fun to see my home as the backdrop for many of the comics in this anthology, like Kate O’Leary’s piece on the Red Line, or Dan Henrick’s at the Borders on State and Randolph. There was some work from one of my favorite Chicago artists, Jeffrey Brown and I was especially pleased to turn to the first page and find the work of the very talented Lucy Knisley! Lucy is a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago and more recently the CCS (Center for Cartooning Studies) and keeps a journal that I very much enjoy.

I Saw You… is a wonderful showcase of artwork both humorous and thoughtful, but my favorite part is the idea that these ads could be for me or someone I know. Most of the pieces were inspired by actual ads, so you never know. Reading this collection was a lot like seeing the ads on Craiglist come to life, although admittedly some of the are a little more absurd than most. I’ll leave you with what very well may have been my favorite comics in the collection, this piece by Adam Kidder:

Adam Kidder's work as seen in I Saw You...

Seriously, I really enjoyed this book.

Evan Dorkin’s FUN Coming To A Screen Near You!

Starting yesterday, comic212.net will be running a strip every day from Evan Dorkin’s FUN until they run out. I first became familiar with Dorkin’s work as a 14 year old who happened across a issue of Milk & Cheese. I think it was the first time I’d seen a comic book with content that was so grotesque, violent and outrageously inappropriate. I (obviously) loved it. Dorkin’s work is so meticulously detailed and full of this fast-paced energy. His career has been pretty action-packed as well, he’s written for animation like Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, adapted film and television works into comics (Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey) and created many vile-yet-lovable original characters – my favorite of which being The Murder Family (featured in his comic series, Dork). More recently I’ve seen him doing some illustration work (spotted his artwork on the cover of I Love You, Beth Cooper, a novel recently adapted into film) and he’s been collaborating with Jill Thompson on the Beast of Burden series (check out the Dark Horse preview for issue #3 here). The fact that I LOVE his work aside, Dorkin seems like a pretty swell dude. I’ve been following him on his Livejournal and Twitter and never fails to entertain. He’s been posting a “Monster of the Day” on Twitter which I nearly always Wikipedia and waste a few minutes on each afternoon (today’s was Katahdin, the angry mutant momma bear from Prophecy). Also, this post on his LJ about his young daughter discovering comics truly warmed my heart. Who knew the creator of such frantic and brutal characters like Milk and Cheese could WARM YOUR HEART? Well, he can and he did.

Evan Dorkin's FUN, now featured at Comics212.net

I look forward to seeing a lot of Dorkin’s work via Comics212. His quick wit and manic artwork seem well suited for an internet audience. As Christopher Butcher of the Comics212 says, “…Evan Dorkin was maybe the best-positioned to take advantage of that gleaming spire of promise, the internet. He’s got hundreds and hundreds of strips, gag illustrations, short stories, and general hilarious muck-raking mayhem already done. The net is desparate for content and he’s got tons of it… and he’s all mine, so back the fuck off.”

Anyway it’s gonna be awesome so go read it.

New Website For Cat Rackham!

I haven’t posted here for a while…I’ve been so busy making my own comics that I haven’t gotten the chance to read anyone else’s. I’m trying to get as much as I can done before SPX so that I can go there feeling confident in the amount (and quality) of the work I’m bringing. Hopefully after that I’ll slow down a bit and get back to posting here more often.

In the meantime, go check out Steve Wolfhard’s new website! He draws an adorable little comic called Cat Rackham that I’ve been following on his livejournal. Finally he has his own site where all the Cat Rackham stories are neatly organized. I encourage you all to go read them. They are funny and heart warming.