The Lady’s Murder
by Eliza Frye
Self-published
Eliza Frye has an overwhelming talent for constructing beautiful images. I sat next to her at APE in 2009 and was totally awestruck by her work. Dumbstruck even. Still, fans kept flocking to her table, chatting her up, and I wondered ‘How does anyone know what to say to someone whose artwork is so goddamn gorgeous?’ Fandom is an art all its own, I tell you.
Her background as an illustrator and character artist comes across strongly in projects like The Lady’s Murder. In it, she takes a rather sexy poem from S. Albert Chatman and uses his idea to build a bony story structure from which her gorgeous art hangs lush and wild.
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Blake Sims has lived his whole life in Southern Kentucky. He currently attends Western Kentucky University and has been known to wear his hair long and reckless.
Sims has self-published his comics since high school. His early books were memorable for their large 8.5″x11″ format. With his latest mini, Rapscallion #5 he’s scaled down the format a bit to the standard, more affordable, quarter fold but hopes to print large again someday.
Expect the next issue of Rapscallion soon, which will be a faux-tabloid style comic. I can’t wait. In the meantime, check out Sims’ blog for more action, adventure and comedy.
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Lauren Barnett is a comic artist, illustrator and graphic designer living and working in Brooklyn NY. She has self-published three mini comics including I’d Sure Like Some Fucking Pancakes, A Story About Fish and Secret Weirdo. She also has a daily comics blog with mostly one-panel gag strips. Her work has been published in the L Magazine’s Comix issue (2008) and she has work on Top Shelf’s Top Shelf 2.0 website. She has an exhibition coming up in October 2010 at Gimme Coffee in Brooklyn, NY, and will soon be interviewed for the web series “Crazy Sexy Geeks.”
Her daily blog can be found at www.melikesyou.blogspot.com. Enjoy!
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Last Wednesday I braved the cold just long enough to drive up to Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and take part in the Twin Cities’ chapter of Indy Comic Book Week. It was well worth the trip.
The event was held at The Source, a local comics and games store. The Source has a large back room that they use to host, among other things, gaming nights and Free Comic Book Day. This was the first time it was used for Indy Comic Book Week. “When I heard about the event, I thought it was a great idea,” said Burl Zorn, a Source employee with a gray ponytail and a long earring dangling from one ear. Zorn has been working at the Source for ten years, and plans to be here for many years to come. Zorn’s job requires him to wear many different hats, and he does it all with a smile. Throughout the night, I watched him interact happily with all the different attendees, restock the free chips and pop, and talk excitedly with the artists about their work.
In all, there were 17 local artists tabling at the event, and over 150 different local comics represented on the racks that usually house the regular sampling of D.C. and Marvel titles. (Some artists submitted multiple titles.) The event lasted from 5:00 to 9:00, with a steady crowd throughout. “Things usually die down an hour earlier in the winter,” said Zorn, “because it gets so cold and dark, and people want to go home.” But the Indy Comics event seemed to keep things bustling longer.
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Tags: athena currier, becky grutzik, bob lipski, brent schoonover, burl zorn, carl borg, danno klonowski, indy comic book week, jennifer menken, matt wendt, michael may, mike bullock, minnesota, mitch gerads, scott dillion, the source
Events | smorean January 6, 2010 | 
Comments (5)
John McNamee and Ted Raskol get together three times a week to draw jam comics. The comics are always four panels long, but they alternate who starts each one. What goes on from start to finish is completely improvised from panel to panel. Their strips are posted on the website Digestive Comics.
McNamee’s webcomic Pie updates thrice weekly. He has drawn over 660 strips so far and shows no sign of stopping. He has been published in three issues of Pulse Comic Zine and has self-published two compilations of Pie. He recently lent his drawing skills for Duck Tales from the Crypt in Big Planet’s November newsletter.
Raskol authors Raskol Political Cartoons, which updates daily. He has been published in Pulse Comic Zine and finds that it’s not so hard to draw a daily cartoon, as long as you’re willing to cut all the people you care about out of your life. His political drawings lean to the left of the political spectrum, but have a streak of independence when it comes to the economic issues.
McNamee and Raskol met while publishing daily comic strips at The Cavalier Daily, which is an independent and self-sustaining newspaper published by students at the University of Virginia (both were graduates of the class of 2007). McNamee has had a table at the last two Small Pres Expos, while Raskol visited to mill about for awhile. By next year’s SPX, they plan to publish a compilation of Digestive Comics.
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UTU
by Malachi Ward
Self-published
It seems weirdly appropriate to review this book on Christmas Eve. I hope you will enjoy the irony.
UTU is beautiful comic book set in two worlds: the highly techno-savvy future and the mystical, superstitious past. The book’s author Malachi Ward claims it is his “finest and only work to date.” For a first comic, I’d say it’s pretty ambitious, but successful. Definitely worth a look.
UTU is about a guy who is able to move between time periods, but has no control over either. In 5102 B.C.E. he is the god of gods, UTU, who nobody seems to respect, and in the future he is just some lonely guy who can’t even pull a girl at the bar.
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Nick started his online comic Misinterpreted Complications just over a year ago primarily as a means of keeping himself off the streets and out of trouble. His preferred artistic medium had been painting on canvas or found bits of wood, but he now enjoys the immediacy of the comic form — not to overlook, of course, the readiness of paper and pens for portability.
When he isn’t fabricating nostalgia for a time he never knew, he can either be found getting his hands filthy digging and dreaming in various allotments around Bristol or unnecessarily tinkering with — and otherwise making his way around the city on — a squiggly handle-barred bicycle, all while procrastinating from, or alternatively pretending to do, his post-graduate studies. It is perhaps not a surprise, therefore, that contemplating vaguely introspective comics fits well into Nick’s emerging milieu.
MisComp is updated on a roughly weekly basis. A self-published “best of the first year” is available now, in made-to-order paperback or hardcover. Email him (misinterpretedcomplications@gmail.com) for details.
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Getting There/Getting Where
by Robyn Jordan
Naptime Press
Getting There/Getting Where is an autobiographical comic by Robyn Jordan. The topics addressed are (generally) jury duty, acquaintances and riding the subway.
This mini is short and sweet. Just a simple little 16-page collection of stories from a cartoonist who is able to tell pleasantly compact stories and lay out an attractive page of art.
Even if the admittedly mundane subject matter doesn’t interest you, I’m certain that Getting There/Getting Where will pique any reader’s interest in Jordan’s work.
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Simon M is a boy in a man costume who lives in Bristol, in Britain. Although having drawn and written stories for most of his early life, he put his pens and pencils aside in favor of imagining how one day he would write bedroom pop symphonies for, and on behalf of, all the quiet people. He never did write anything, but did play the same bits of the same song over and over again enough to drive his cohorts, companions, friends and loved ones to distraction. Happily, though, he rediscovered his love of comics, writing and illustration in early 2007, simultaneously learning about self-publication and the world of small-press zines and comics.
Smoo Comics is his semi-autobiographical, self-published comic that comes out as-and-when he can muster the time, patience and friends to help him put it all together. Although issue #1 is now out of print, issue #2 – in which he worries about time and growing old – is due out in December 2009 and will be available at carefully selected shops (i.e. whoever will stock it), by emailing Simon directly, or by visiting his blog for details.
As with any other self-respecting procrastinator, he has one million and one other projects planned including paintings, illustrations, zines and other ephemera. The progress of these, as well as bits of sketchbooks, the odd review and general paraphernalia, can be followed on his blog. He also has a Twitter feed for up to the minute news and announcements.
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Jose-Luis Olivares is a 2nd year student at the Center for Cartoon Studies.
His guest strip is about the creative process. The drawing is done loosely and quickly in a stream-of-consciousness style, which Jose-Luis says is “the kind of comic that gets my mind thinking and hand moving when I’m restless.”
At the moment he’s working on short comics for his personal anthology called Polite Fiction. He just finished Polite Fiction 2, which debuted at Expozine in Montreal. Polite Fiction 1 is available to read and purchase online at www.joseluisolivares.com/blog and Polite Fiction 2 will be available for purchase there soon. He’s also working on a couple of children’s book pitches.
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