Archive for July, 2008
Based out of the alternative publishing capital of Portland, Oregon, Sparkplug Books is regularly issuing some of the most exciting work being released in comics today. When he first launched the company, cartoonist Dylan Williams was seeking to expose unsigned talent, while keeping check to make sure that the publishing house largely adhered to his [...]
Filed under: Interviews | 1 Comment
Tags: Alixoplous, Bookhunter, Dash Shaw, Dylan Williams, Edison Steelhead, Jason Shiga, MoCCa, Reich, Renee French, Sparkplug
Pocket Full of Rain by Jason
Pocket Full of Rain
By Jason
Fantagraphics
To have read exclusively Jason’s stateside output up until this moment, one might have likely suspected that the Norwegian artist sprung fully-formed from his art school womb. The cartoonist has one of the most instantly recognizable and artistically infallible styles in contemporary underground comics. His surname-free moniker is irreparably tied to [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 1 Comment
Tags: Fantagraphics, Jason
One of the great things about interviewing the Jules Feiffer, from an editorial standpoint, is the fact that the legendary cartoonist invariably has some new project to speak about, between a seemingly endless parade of comics, plays, and books, all of which the artist thankfully continues to crank out, a mere six months away from [...]
Filed under: Interviews | 6 Comments
Tags: Fantagraphics, Jules Feiffer, political cartoons, Village Voice
Ivy #1-3 by Sarah Oleksyk
Ivy #1-3
by Sarah Oleksyk
Self-Published
Sarah Oleksyk can be proud of herself. Through three chapters of Ivy, she continues to build strong characters, awful tensions, incredible realities, and consistently beautiful, full panels. Nothing gets skimped. It’s just a wholly good comic and I’m sure it will wrap up someday as a very satisfying [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 6 Comments
Tags: mini-comics, Ivy, Sarah Olekysk, high school
Lucky Vol. 2 Issue 2
By Gabrielle Bell
Drawn & Quarterly
What makes your life so damned interesting? It’s one of those key questions that has steadily devolved into cliché, over the years, something that every artist flirting with autobiographical modes of expression must ask themselves, a question that will no doubt be repeated ad naseum with every [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 2 Comments
The Cross Hatch Dispatch 7/15/08
[Above, the book hunt begins. Below, dispatch, caught red-handed.]
Filed under: The Cross Hatch Dispatch | 0 Comments
Ralph Bakshi is one of those rare artists who possesses a personality ever bit as colorful as the characters he creates. It’s no surprise then, that the man fit in perfectly amongst the Ren & Stimpy cast, when John Kricfalusi asked him to voice a part in his 2003 sequel to Fire Dogs.
That inspired partnership [...]
Filed under: Interviews | 2 Comments
Tags: animation, Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Ralph Bakshi, Robert Crumb, Wizards
Too Cool To Be Forgotten
By Alex Robinson
Top Shelf
I have been taken to task by my unabashed appreciation of Alex Robinson’s work by people with far more highfalutin taste in comics than I have. I found both Box Office Poison and Tricked to be highly readable and ambitious in both storytelling scope and page layout. In [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 1 Comment
Blurred Vision 4 by Various
Blurred Vision Vol. 4
By Various
Blurred Books
Blurred Vision 4 isn’t terrible, but it isn’t great, and with the amount of exciting new comics constantly being put out in various formats, there’s little need for a mediocre anthology—let alone time for it, if you want to try to stay on your indie comics A-game.
2008’s edition of Blurred [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 13 Comments
While it was the release of Jason Shiga’s Eisner-nominated Bookhunter that brought Sparkplug Books to the attention of cultural critics across the country, without an equally strong roster of subsequent releases, it would have been easy to write the Portland-based publisher’s single book success off as a fluke.
Much to his credit, however, founder Dylan Williams—himself [...]
Filed under: Interviews | 2 Comments
Tags: Alixoplous, Bookhunter, Dash Shaw, Dylan Williams, Edison Steelhead, Jason Shiga, MoCCa, Reich, Renee French, Sparkplug
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