Month: October 2017

Steven T. Seagle addresses nakedness in new essay collection

Seagle and 19 emerging global cartoonists will “take drawn storytelling into the world of the ‘graphic essay'” with a new collection titled ‘Get Naked.’

Image Comics will publish It’s a Bird writer Steven T. Seagle’s Get Naked, a collection of essays featuring illustrations by a host of artists.

“For most of my life I had massive reservations about getting naked,” Seagle said. “But the more I traveled the world, and found myself in uncomfortable situations, the more it became obvious that the American anxiety of ‘I’m not taking my clothes off in front of anyone else unless it’s to have sex with them’ is unique—and not in a good way—to the US. I started looking into the history of nakedness and thinking about why we’re so uncomfortable with bodies in this country—with me as a lens for that. Comedic essays seemed like the right way to chronicle what I realized, and graphic essays felt like a great new kind of visual challenge for challenging subject matter—nakedness—both physical and emotional.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Andrew White and Madeleine Witt

The editors of ‘Warmer: A Collection of Comics About Climate Change for the Fearful and Hopeful’ discuss putting together the anthology as well their own stories that appear in the collection.

Andrew White and Madeleine Witt are the editors of the new anthology Warmer: A Collection of Comics About Climate Change for the Fearful and Hopeful, which debuted at SPX last month. A collection featuring 16 stories by 19 creators, the project tries to consider the impact of global climate change from different perspectives. It’s about eco-anxiety, and responding to a world changing around us in very fundamental ways.

The anthology features the work of a number of talented cartoonists including L Nichols, Caitlin Skaalrud and Maggie Umber, as well as stories from Witt and White. The project refuses to be hopeless and yet does not traffic in “feel good” platitudes that suggest “everything will be fine.” I spoke with Witt and White about the project and walking that line in this important book.

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Oni Press launches ‘Spectacle’ webcomic

Read Megan Rose Gedris’ supernatural murder mystery on the web for free before it’s collected.

Earlier this year Oni Press announced Spectacle, a supernatural murder mystery by Megan Rose Gedris planned for publication next year. At New York Comic Con, they revealed the series will see life a whole lot sooner than next winter — they’ve actually launched it as a webcomic, which you can start reading now.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Liniers on ‘Good Night, Planet’

The creator of ‘Macanudo’ discusses his latest project from TOON Books, humor and how his daughters influence him

Since 2002, Liniers has been entertaining Argentina with the daily comic strip Macanudo and for English language readers, the fourth collection of translated strips will be published in the spring. He’s also been drawing album covers and New Yorker magazine covers, and even had a recent comic in the pages of The New York Times. Since 2013 he’s made three children’s books, all of which have been published by Toon Books.

His most recent book is Good Night, Planet, which has also been released in a Spanish language edition, Buenas Noches, Planeta. It is funny and sweet with a sense of strangeness and a feeling of adventure. It also feels like autumn in New England. Liniers and his family have been living in Vermont for the past year where Liniers was a fellow at the Center for Cartoon Studies and we spoke recently by phone about the book, the strip, humor, how his daughters influence him, and not being Woody Allen.

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Inktober spotlight: Victor Santos honors Jack Kirby

The ‘Violent Love’ artist dedicates Inktober to the King of Comics.

In addition to being the spookiest month, October is also Inktober, an art challenge where artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month. While the official Inktober site provides a list of “prompts” to help inspire artists, many of them choose their own themes.

With many comic artists are participating this year — you can find a lot of them on Twitter or Tumblr using the #inktober hashtag, and we’ve been posting a bunch on our own Tumblr — we thought we’d spotlight a few of the “can’t miss” ones we’ve seen so far.

Victor Santos is the creator of Polar and the recently launched Guts webcomic, as well as the artist for the recent Violent Love miniseries. For Inktober, Santos chose to honor Jack Kirby, who would have been 100 this year.

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Wein’s final Swamp Thing story will appear in ‘Swamp Thing Winter Special’

The special will also include a new story by Tom King and Jason Fabok.

Before he passed away in September, Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein was working with Kelley Jones on a follow-up to their 2016 miniseries featuring Alec Holland’s alter ego. Although the miniseries will never be finished, Entertainment Weekly reports that the first issue will appear in Swamp Thing Winter Special #1, with other stories.

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Wolfman writes a new ‘Raven’ miniseries

‘Raven: Daughter of Darkness’ will feature art by Pop Mhan and an appearance by Night Force leader Baron Winters.

Marv Wolfman, the writer of the classic New Teen Titans reboot in the 1980s and co-creator of Raven, will return to the character for a new 12-issue series with artist Pop Mhan. The follow-up to Wolfman’s previous Raven series will bring Rachel Roth together Baron Winters, leader of Night Force.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Michel Fiffe on ‘Zegas’

The ‘Copra’ creator revisits its predecessor, which will be collected and released by Fantagraphics.

Today Michel Fiffe is best known for Copra, the acclaimed Suicide Squad-inspired adventure story that he self-publishes. Before he made Copra, Fiffe started self-publishing with the series Zegas. It only lasted three issues, but the stories of siblings Emily and Boston Zegas take place in an unnamed city and combines quiet realistic stories with dynamic styles, wild backgrounds and interacts with the story in interesting ways. I made the comparison to George Herriman’s Krazy Kat who had wild backgrounds and used them to convey a feeling. Zegas doesn’t take place in a science fiction city, but it captures a lot of the energy and craziness that comes from moving to a big city and experiencing urban life for the first time.

Fantagraphics has just published a collection of Zegas, along with a brand new story Fiffe created for the collection. He continues to publish Copra, with issue #31 out now and a fifth collection coming out early next year from Bergen Street Comics, and is creating a new series Negativeland on Patreon. In addition, this week brought the news that Fiffe is working on Bloodstrike, the 1990s comic created by Rob Liefeld. This interview was conducted before that news broke.

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Inktober spotlight: Chris Samnee vacations in Gotham

The artist of ‘Captain America’ turns his pen to Batman for Inktober.

In addition to being the spookiest month, October is also Inktober, an art challenge where artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month. While the official Inktober site provides a list of “prompts” to help inspire artists, many of them choose their own themes.

With many comic artists are participating this year — you can find a lot of them on Twitter or Tumblr using the #inktober hashtag, and we’ve been posting a bunch on our own Tumblr — we thought we’d spotlight a few of the “can’t miss” ones we’ve seen so far.

Chris Samnee can usually be found in the Marvel Universe these days, drawing Daredevil, Black Widow and very soon Captain America. But for Inktober the artist has taken a trip to Gotham, as he chose a Batman theme for the month. You can check out some of his artwork below, and be sure to follow him on Twitter to see the rest. He’s also selling them on eBay.

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Image Comics delivers ‘Ice Cream Man’ in January

A ‘genre-defying series of disparate one-shots’ from W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran will tell ‘odd little stories about broken people and their complicated interior lives.’

Who wants ice cream? Image Comics has announced that W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran are breaking out the sprinkles for Ice Cream Man, a “genre-defying series of disparate one-shots” arriving this January.

“I’m jazzed to be working with Martín and Chris to bring folks these odd little stories about broken people and their complicated interior lives,” said Prince. “With any luck, there’s something yummy here for all stripes of reader, no matter their tastes.”

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Comics Lowdown: ‘One Punch Man’ tops GN chart

Plus: Another view of Marvel’s Northrop Grumman Comic, Palmiotti and Conner say goodbye to Harley Quinn, and was New York Comic Con too big?

Top Graphic Novels: Viz takes half the slots in the September BookScan top 20 chart, which measures sales of graphic novels in the book channel: Vol. 12 of One Punch Man was the top seller, followed by the all-in-one edition of Death Note (a 12-volume omnibus—yes, it’s a brick). Perennial best-sellers Fun Home, March, and Watchmen all make the chart, as does Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight: Master Race, vol. 3 of Tom King’s Batman: Rebirth, and Avatar’s limited edition of Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows’s Providence: Act 3. Interestingly, there is not a single Image title on the list.

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Michel Fiffe takes aim at ‘Bloodstrike’ in 2018

‘Don’t rub the blood. Drown in it.’

Michel Fiffe dropped a big ol’ bloody bomb on Twitter this morning — he’s working on a revival of Bloodstrike, the 1990s Extreme team created by Rob Liefeld.

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