I need to reedeem myself from the previous post. I do.
Alex Fitch of the panel Borders podcast posted a video of their “Looking for Lost Girls” episode. You can download the video in various formats, or listen to it via streaming.
I haven’t seen yet the full video, but the bits that I saw were wonderful.
On these days, while I’m waiting for my copy of RASL to arrive, I find myself reading a lot about Jeff Smith. I’ve started reading Bone around issue… 18, I think? but I’ve never managed to get past issue 34. I owe to myself to end that series… Jeff Smith’s work has been a great influence to me in those years. (still is)
Here’s a two-part inteview (one and two) conducted by Vaneta Rogers. Some excerpts:
“Yeah. And that just wasn’t going to happen in a syndicated strip. Around that time, I saw something in a Sunday supplement about Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. And that got me to go into a comic book store. ‘Cause I didn’t even know comic book stores existed. When I read comics when I was a kid, we had them at the drug store. So I didn’t know about the advent of comic book stores. So I went and I bought the Dark Knight Returns, and when I was in the comic book store, it was the first time I saw Love and Rockets. And I saw Cerebus. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There were things happening – the end of the underground movement, really. These stories that I didn’t even know existed.”
“I said, “The story’s done. It’s been out in 15 languages for all these years. And I don’t think we should change it. I think it’s a slippery slope. You’re going to have me changing everything.” I mean, they wanted to call beer by the name “butterbeer,” or whatever they call it in Harry Potter. And I thought, aw that’s cute, but on the next page they’re gambling and fixing a cow race. I was like… look, we just can’t.”
A little late, I know. Daniel Clowes’ strip for the NYT, Mr. Wonderful, concluded a couple of days ago. You can download all the pages in pdf format from here.
(You should also check the others. I’m really looking forward to see Jason’s Low Moon)
Taking place on February 8th at Meltdown, the party is a celebrates the conclusion of the internationally acclaimed comic book series Y: The Last Man and is a benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Joss Whedon will appear in person to toast Y: The Last Man co-creators Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. All proceeds from this once-in-a-lifetime event will benefit the First Amendment work of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
They will be also auctioning original artwork depicting the series characters. Some of the authors invited are Goran Parlov, Dean Haspiel, Nikki Cook, Jill Thompson and many more.
Here’s Nikki’s drawing:
Jeff Smith announced that he will be hosting a series of guest blogs, talking about the self-publishing scene in the 90’s. It starts today with Colleen Doran.
I’d like to quote something of it, but I think you should do better reading it all. Go now.
(and return, of course)
I’ve seen this on today’s Journalista. “Eccoci Ancora Qui” is a study of early daily strips, made by Alfredo Castelli, a writer and researcher from Italy. Until february 7, he’s offering the full book for download in a series of zipped files.
I’m looking at it now, and I can’t stop recommending it. I’ll buy the book when it comes out, too.
Public Domain is a 145-page collection of Channel Zero “extras”… test pages, character sketches, short stories, unused artwork, photography… all material I generated while creating the Channel Zero world but that never saw print in the graphic novel. It was created, deliberately, very old school and low fi, using mostly a photocopier and a glue stick, the results being grainy and choppy and, in my mind, an accurate representation of how I used to work when I first started making comics.
You need to read this. I mean it.
One of those artists that I discovered just a few years ago, dspite having seen and read quite a number of his early works as a kid. here’s the link for the blog. And here’s Dan Dare
