Smash Pages Q&A: Alberto Ledesma on ‘Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer’

In his first book, Alberto Ledesma combines comics, illustrations and essays to examine what it means to be undocumented in the United States.

Alberto Ledesma’s first book, Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer: Undocumented Vignettes from a pre-American Life combines comics, illustrations and essays to examine what it means to be undocumented in the United States. It’s a deeply moving book that is very personal, but Ledesma is also interested in using his own story as a springboard to discussing other topics and towards a larger conversation. Ledesma has a love of comics, and makes clear in the book that keeping a sketchbook is key to how he works. It is a deeply felt, very political book that eschews narrative and seeks many ways to think about these political concerns and the artistic approaches of combining text and art.

The book is the first of a new imprint, Latinographix, part of Mad Creek Books at Ohio State University. Ledesma holds a doctorate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and works there today, but he’s very interested in starting a much wider conversation around these issues and how they relate to questions of American identity.

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Koyama Press announces new titles from DeForge, Degen and more

Koyama’s spring 2018 line-up includes new graphic novels from Jessica Campbell, Michael Comeau, A. Degen, Michael DeForge, Ben Sears and Fiona Smyth.

Koyama Press announced their Spring 2018 releases over the weekend in conjunction with the Small Press Expo, including new books from Jessica Campbell, Michael DeForge and Ben Sears, among others.

According to the publisher, it’s “our biggest season, in terms of page count, ever! We are immensely excited to bring such a spectacular selection of comics to you this Spring!”

Here’s a rundown of what to expect …

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Ferris, Nowak, Fink and more take home 2017 Ignatz Awards

Annual awards presented at this weekend’s Small Press Expo honor excellence in independent comics.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris continued to rack up accolades this weekend as it took home two Ignatz Awards last night. Other winners at the annual awards presentation included Jess Fink’s Chester 5000, Ben Passmore’s Your Black Friend and Carolyn Nowak’s Diana’s Electric Tongue.

Named after the brick-throwing mouse from Krazy Kat, the awards honor “excellence in independent comics” and are selected by a jury of five creators and voted on by attendees of the Small Press Expo. The jurors for this year’s nominations were Neil Brideau, Glynnis Fawkes, Sara Lautman, Trungles and David Willis.

The complete list of nominees can be found below, with the winner in bold.

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Smash Pages Q&A: And ‘Now’ … Eric Reynolds

The associate publisher of Fantagraphics discusses his new anthology project, which launches this month.

Eric Reynolds is the associate publisher of Fantagraphics, which means that he’s edited some of the best comics in the world. Throughout his career though he’s had a special interest in anthologies.

His new project is Now, a three-times-a-year anthology with cartoonists well known and not, working in a variety of styles from all over the world. The first issue features work by Gabrielle Bell, Noah Van Sciver and a long story by Eleanor Davis in addition to a number of cartoonists people might not know as well. Reynolds wanted to create a relatively cheap ($9.99) project with a feel and approach he didn’t see anywhere else.

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‘Hellboy Omnibus Collection’ collects the series from the start

The adventures of Mike Mignola’s heroic half-demon will be collected in six volumes.

Clear some room — a lot of room — on your bookshelves. Dark Horse Comics will publish Mike Mignola’s signature, award-winning series Hellboy in Omnibus format, collecting the entire run in chronological order.

“I’m very excited to finally have all the Hellboy stories collected in chronological order,” Mignola said. “And I’m especially excited to have the three Duncan Fegredo books—all the stuff with Alice and the Queen of Blood—together in one collection for the first time.”

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Batman and the Ninja Turtles to team up again in December

When Bane invades the TMNT universe, Donatello looks to Batman for assistance.

Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will meet again in Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, a six-issue miniseries by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II.

“What DC and IDW started with Batman/TMNT in 2015 continues to spark interest with fans of these characters that have worldwide recognition,” said Hank Kanalz, DC SVP Editorial Strategy & Administration. “We can’t wait to see what James and Freddie deliver this time around.”


In addition to the 2015 crossover series, the characters also met in 2016’s Batman/TMNT Adventures — although that crossover featured the animated versions of both.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Andrea Offermann on ‘Yvain: The Knight of the Lion’

The artist discusses the artistic choices she made for the book, the ways that she was allowed to play with the script and help shape the story, and the comics scene in Germany right now

Andrea Offerman has drawn picture books and illustrated novels including The Midnight Zoo, The Boneshaker, The Broken Lands, and The Thickety. Her art has been exhibited in Germany, the United States and elsewhere. Comics fans might known here best as one of the members of the Flight collective, contributing stories to two volumes of the anthology series.

I spoke with her in 2007 about the short comic she made for Flight Volume 4, her first published comic, and we spoke again recently about the graphic novel Yvain–The Knight of the Lion, written by M.T. Anderson, which is out now from Candlewick Press. The book is her first graphic novel and it is an artistic tour de force for many reasons, and we spoke about the artistic choices she made, the ways that she was allowed to play with the script and help shape the story, and the comics scene in Germany right now.

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IDW Publishing launches Kickstarter for quarterly hardcover ‘magazine’

New project out of their Portland, Oregon office will offer interviews, opinion pieces and more about ‘all aspects of the creative culture.’

IDW Publishing has launched a Kickstarter for Full Bleed, a hardcover “magazine” curated and edited by IDW Publishing’s Dirk Wood and CEO and Publisher Ted Adams. This is the first project coming out of their Portland, Oregon office, which was announced late last year.

Not to be confused with Matt Maxwell’s Full Bleed column-turned-book about the comics industry, IDW describes the project as a “brand-new quarterly, hand-crafted, print only, 200-page hardcover.” It will include interviews, short stories, opinion pieces and of course comics, covering “all aspects of the creative culture, and beyond — comics, music, film, TV, fine art, photography, design, politics and more.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Glynnis Fawkes on ‘Greek Diary’ and more

The creator discusses working as an illustrator on archeological digs, co-editing a new issue of ‘The Strumpet,’ upcoming projects and more.

Earlier this year Glynnis Fawkes published Greek Diary, a collection of comics about the previous summer that was spent working on an archeological dig in Greece and a trip through the Greek islands. Fawkes has been working since art school as an illustrator for archeological digs, and has illustrated a number of scholarly books including Three Stones Make a Wall by Eric Cline and Kinyras: The Divine Lyre by her husband John Curtis Franklin. This interest can be seen in a lot of Fawkes’ comics work like Corinthian Diary, Time Out in Palestine and Alle Ego, which was given a MoCCA Art Festival Award of Excellence in 2016.

When it debuted at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival, Greek Diary received the Silver Medal for Long Form Work. This year also saw the release of Reign of Crumbs from Kilgore Books, which collects many of Fawkes’ diary comics that have appeared in Mutha Magazine, The New Yorker.com and elsewhere. Fawkes has also been in both of issues of Resist!, and is co-editing and contributing to the new issue of The Strumpet coming out this fall.

Fawkes will be at the Small Press Expo, or SPX, this weekend in Bethesda, Maryland. You can find her at SPX table I7B and will have copies of Cinderbunny and the “spanking new” Strumpet 5, as well as Reign of Crumbs and Greek Diary.

Fawkes and I spoke after she returned from this year’s trip to Greece.

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Santa Claus is coming to ‘Dead of Winter’ [Preview]

The second issue of Kyle Starks and Gabo’s horror-comedy miniseries finds our zombie-fighting heroes getting some help from a drunk mall Santa.

I enjoyed the first issue of Dead of Winter, Kyle Starks and Gabo’s horror-comedy miniseries based on the game by Plaid Hat Games. Oni Press has sent out a preview of the second issue, which features our zombie-fighting heroes getting some help from the man in red and white — Santa Claus. Or a drunk mall Santa, to be precise.

You can find the preview and solicit info below. Dead of Winter #2 comes out on Wednesday.

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Cullen Bunn’s prose work collected in ‘A Passage in Black’

OmahaBound collects 27 ‘back-woods horror’ prose stories by Bunn, with illustrations by Tim Mayer.

When he’s not writing comics — and sometimes it’s hard to imagine that there’s a time when he’s not writing comics, based on all the projects he has going on — Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun, Harrow County) writes short stories, usually (and not surprisingly) in the horror genre. Now 27 of those stories are being collected by publisher OmahaBound.

A Passage in Black & Other Stories will include eight never-before published stories, along with 19 that were only released in the small press. Artist Tim Mayer will provide 23 illustrations for the collection, as well as the cover for the trade paperback version. Tyler Crook, Bunn’s collaborator on Harrow County, created the cover for the limited edition hardcover that will only be available on OmahaBound’s site. The publisher describes the stories as “back-woods horror, creepy and terrifying tales that only Cullen Bunn could tell.”

The collection is due out Oct. 6. Check out the two covers below.

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Smash Pages Q&A: M.T. Anderson on ‘Yvain: The Knight of the Lion’

M.T. Anderson has written everything from picture books to young adult novels. Anderson received the National Book Award in 2006 and he’s written contemporary stories, historical ones, fantasy and science fiction novels including Feed, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, and the recent Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad. His first graphic novel, Yvain: The Knight of the Lion, illustrated by Andrea Offermann, is out now from Candlewick Press.

The book is a retelling of a 12th Century epic poem by Chrétien de Troyes. Though not well known today, de Troyes is considered one of the greatest and most influential medieval writers. Anderson and Offermann made a number of striking and inspired artistic choices as far as how they approached and presented the story, which is both very much about the 12th-13th centuries, but also very contemporary in some ways.

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