Wednesday, June 24, 2009

More EGG reviews

I know no one but me cares, but I like having an archive of this stuff...

Matthew J. Brady at Warren Peace Sings the Blues (or, alternately, Indiepulp.com) has a big overview of lots of the great stuff he picked up at MoCCA '09. He calls "These Kids Today," "a three-page crime story about a guy who has a one night stand with a girl and gets too attached, with the art probably being the most interesting aspect." I can't disagree! He then goes on to talk about the "Cold Feet" and "Below the Fold" minis, saying:

"Skillman doesn't do a bad job here, but he's especially good at picking collaborators, with Jorge Coelho being especially noteworthy, putting plenty of detail, good facial expressions, and moody color into the tale for maximum effect. ... Skillman looks to be pretty good at what he does, although it would be interesting to see him stretch a bit and tell something longer. Crime is a growing genre in comics, so there's definitely room for him to tell his stories. Hopefully he'll be able to continue plying his trade."

Over at a blog called "Lerbd," Pedro Moura picked up a copy of EGG #1 from Jorge Coehlo at the Beja comics festival, and included a review in his festival rundown. It's in Portugese, so I'm only getting the Google translate version, but he seems to comparing the stories (unfavorably, if I'm understanding correctly) to David Lapham--but hell, even an unflattering comparison to Lapham is flattering, as far as I'm concerned! He rightly praises Jorge's work, though chides me for hamstringing him with cramped, 9-panel pages--again, guilty as charged, though personally, I thought Jorge rose to the challenge brilliantly.

Pedro Moura also made this YouTube video that I, for reasons I can't quite explain, find extrememly entertaining. He flips through EGG #1 at the end of the video.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

MoCCA postgame, part II

I forgot to mention the best part of MoCCA: new comics! I've really appreciated it when other blogs have given shout-outs to EGG, so now that I've had a chance to actually read a decent chunk of my purchases, I thought I'd throw a few highlights out there to the interwebs. In no particular order:



For the most part, I tried to avoid the bigger books, which I can always get in a bookstore later, in favor of smaller stuff you can only find at MoCCA, but I couldn't resist Scott C.'s Double Fine Action Comics. Very cool to see the webcomic collected into an actual book... I'll admit I tend to get a little burned out on webcomics after about 100 installments or so (call me a luddite if you must), but I'm psyched to get to pick up this bizarre and hilarious strip where I left off.



I was also excited to pick up a new mini from Matt Weigle, Monsters & Condiments, which is totally fun, even if it's a bit slight in comparison to his previous The Four Husbands, Ayaje's Wives, or Seven More Days of Not Getting Eaten, which are three of my favorite comics, mini- or otherwise. Discovering cartoonists like him is why I've loved all the previous MoCCA shows--I can't recommend his stuff highly enough.



Another MoCCA favorite, Jamie Tanner, didn't have anything new to me this year, but his excellent collection The Aviary is well worth checking out nonetheless!



And rounding out my list of perennial MoCCA favorites is Tom Gauld's new book, The Gigantic Robot. I'll admit I was a little disappointed by the somewhat conventional format--Gauld does such great stuff with formats in his Three Very Small Comics series, that I would almost rather have seen this book at full on Many Splendid Sundays size, or something along those lines, but never mind that, because, as always, his drawing is exquisite, and the story is as good as ever.



Thien Pham is a new name to me, but his Sumo is really good, with an Andi Watson kind of feel... I wish I'd gotten around to reading this on Saturday night, because I should have gone back to their table on Sunday to pick up more of the many great-looking books there!



One especially pleasant surprise was Undertow by Ellen Lindner. It's a nicely drawn look at life in Coney Island in the 1950s, without relying on hackneyed cliches of that time period. (No one goes to any "sock hops" or anything.) If I hadn't bought it directly from young Ms. Lindner, I would have assumed she must be in her mid-70s, she does such a good job of evoking a real sense of place. (Now that I type that, it seems like a really strange thing to say, but I honestly mean it as a compliment.)

Tomaz Kaczynski's TransAlaska and TransAtlantis are beautifully illustrated and nicely designed, but I could have used some numbering or some clue that they're not just related books but actually a serialized story--now I'm kicking myself for missing the middle piece, TransSiberia.



Another cool discovery was Victor Kerlow's Gutter--just beautifully, beautifully drawn. Victor spent some time hanging out at our table, and it was great to meet him--hi, Victor!



Speaking of our table, it goes without saying that Connor Willumsen's Real Bad and The Middle are as fantastic as you'd expect.

*Phew* That's about all I have energy for at the moment. And that's without even mentioning the minis by Zander and Kevin Cannon, the latest installment of Spike's Templar Arizona, Ulf K's Ex Libris, JP Coovert's Adrift, Thomas Hall & Daniel Bradford's R13, Rick Spears & Chuck BB's Black Metal (which I'm obviously behind the curve on!), or the GREAT new Top Shelf book, Second Thoughts by Niklas Asker... I wasn't able to get a copy of David Mazzucchelli's new book before it sold out, but I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to that, too.

Anyway, long story short: MoCCA, as usual, restores my faith in comics.

Monday, June 8, 2009

MoCCA postgame



Had a GREAT time at MoCCA. (Well, apart from the heat.) It was great fun to hang with Connor behind the table, and with Brett, Chris, Leigh, Andy, etc, etc, after the show, and awesome to meet everyone who stopped by the table... a lot of folks came by and mentioned that they read this blog, which was very cool to hear--thanks to everyone who stopped by!

I even sold out of EGG #1, so on Sunday I wound up printing out some minicomic versions of two of the stories in there ("These Kids Today" and "Below the Fold") on Sunday morning, which worked out pretty well. I also sold quite a few Steel Helmet prints and bird silkscreens, but I do have a few left over. (And plenty of SOAO and POTUS prints, too--I think I shot myself in the foot with the "POTUS" label... apparently that bit of trivia hasn't seeped as deeply into pop culture as I'd thought--West Wing fans and political blog junkies seemed to be the only people who knew that POTUS means "President Of The United States.") I'm thinking of trying to find some easy way to sell them online... would people be interested in that? Drop a comment and let me know if I should bother...

(Photo via Geekanerd flickr stream.)

Friday, June 5, 2009

Don't forget: MoCCA this weekend!


Just thought I'd bump this back up to the top of the blog, in case anyone stops by over the weekend--come visit me at the MoCCA festival, at the 69th Regiment Armory at Lexington Ave and 25th St, 11 AM to 6 PM this Saturday & Sunday. More details on my stuff here, or if you're curious about what ELSE you can find at MoCCA, there's a couple good posts at The Beat on self-published/minicomics stuff and books from honest-to-god publishers.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Yojimbo print by Paul Pope


Oh my, that's nice! (And gratifyingly similar to a never-realized idea I had for a Yojimbo DVD cover back in the day, sans circle inset.) Since I already ordered mine, I can tell you without fear that the edition of 250 is available here.

(To clarify, this is NOT a Criterion product and I had nothing to do with it.)

Via The Beat.

Monday, June 1, 2009

MoCCA 2009: Where to find me...



We just got our table assignment for MoCCA... you'll be able to find Connor Willumsen and myself at table 621, which is apparently in the southwest corner of the building, or back and to the left if you come in through the main Lexington ave entrance.

See you there!