Tag: Czap Books

‘Ley Lines’ reveals its 2020 lineup

Victor Martins, Simon Moreton, Xia Gordon and Brendan Leach will each create an issue of the quarterly series.

The Ignatz-nominated comics series Ley Lines will return this year with four new issues, giving cartoonists “a platform … to directly engage with influences beyond the realm of comics.”

Published by Grindstone Comics and Czap Books, each issue of Ley Lines features a different artist’s take on an artist’s work. Previous issues have featured Gloria Rivera tackling the work of author and naturalist John Muir, Diana Chu channeling singer Patti Smith and W.T. Frick focusing on science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin. L Nichols oversees the project.

Now in its sixth year, the 2020 lineup includes:

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Smash Pages Q&A: Rory Frances and Jae Bearhat

The creators of ‘Little Teeth’ discuss the recently released collection from Czap Books, how they first started working together and more.

Rory Frances had been making comics like Boys Are Slapstick for years before connecting with Jae Bearhat, who’s currently the editor of ZEAL Magazine. The two teamed up to make the serial comic Little Teeth, parts of which were first published on Hazlitt in 2015-16, and has just been published by Czap Books in a collected edition.

Little Teeth is a story of a group of friends living in an unnamed city. The characters are never named and the reader is immediately dropped into the story, to try and make sense of the relationships between characters and the larger dynamics. The anthropomorphic animals allow the creators to play with questions and expectations of gender and gender identity. There were scenes that made me laugh out loud and scenes that made me cringe in recognition. It is a thoughtful, funny and insightful comic about characters who are all too human, and simply one of the best graphic novels out so far this year. I recently spoke with Rory and Jae over Skype.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Liz Suburbia

The creator of ‘Sacred Heart’ discusses her latest project, ‘Egg Cream,’ as well as her first exposure to comics, the way she works and serialization.

Liz Suburbia has been making comics for years in her zine series Cyanide Milkshake, and Sacred Heart, which was collected into a single volume and published by Fantagraphics in 2015. Suburbia’s new project is Egg Cream. An annual comic published by Czap Books and Silver Sprocket, it will feature not just the sequel to Sacred Heart but new comics and illustrations from Suburbia as well.

Egg Cream is completely accessible for those who have never read Scared Heart, set 10 years after the events of that book and told in a different manner than that book. This first chapter explains some of the questions that were never answered in the first volume, and add a few more than we’ll no doubt learn more about in future issues. Suburbia talked about this larger story she’s telling, the way she works and serialization.

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