‘Green Monk’ returns from Image Comics

Brandon Dayton’s minicomic turned webcomic about a monk and his blade of grass gets a graphic novel in September.

I first read Brandon Dayton‘s Green Monk back during Indy Comic Book Week, when a Diamond Comics Distributors skip week gave a bunch of independent comics creators a opportunity to promote their books to comic retailers and fans. It’s a beautiful minicomic that landed on YALSA’s “Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens” in 2011, and now it’s getting a graphic novel sequel, courtesy of Image Comics.

“So excited to be bringing the Green Monk to a wider audience through Image,” said Dayton in a press release. “This is a book that has all the things I love to see in comics. It’s a mix of quiet, contemplative moments with surreal, and sometimes explosive, action. I hope it can provide a real sense of journey and discovery.”

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‘Black Hammer’ Library Edition coming this fall

Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s series gets a deluxe edition, due out Oct. 24.

Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer has delivered an interesting take on superheroes, playing off the archetypes of the genre and creating some pretty great characters in the process. The Eisner-nominated series has proven popular enough to warrant several spinoffs, and now Dark Horse has announced Black Hammer Library Edition Volume 1, a deluxe, oversized hardcover collecting Black Hammer #1-13 and other material from the series.

“I couldn’t be prouder of this deluxe library edition,” Lemire said. “I love the world of Black Hammer so much, and I love seeing the stories Dean and I worked so hard to create collected in such a gorgeous volume.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Megan Rose Gedris on ‘Spectacle’

The longtime webcomics creator discusses her latest collaboration with Oni Press.

Megan Rose Gedris has been making comics for years. From Yu+Me to I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space to The Lady Eudora Henley and Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta, Gedris has been producing thousands of comics pages nonstop and more than a dozen series online and in print in many genres.

Her current project is Spectacle, an ongoing series published by Oni Press about Anna, a fortune teller and an engineer working at a traveling circus. In the first issue her twin sister Kat is murdered, though she lingers as a ghost, which comes as a shock to the scientifically minded Anna. The series is about finding Kat’s murderer, but it’s also about exploring the people who made up the circus and examining their lives. It is not just a beautifully drawn book, but a strikingly insightful look at a community of outsiders and performers.

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Stan Sakai honored with the first Joe Kubert Distinguished Storyteller Award

The award was presented on Saturday at Ontario’s Comic Con Revolution.

Stan Sakai, creator of the long-running and always excellent Usagi Yojimbo, has been awarded the first Joe Kubert Distinguished Storyteller Award, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter. The award was presented on Saturday at Ontario’s Comic Con Revolution.

Named for legendary artist and teacher Joe Kubert, The Joe Kubert Distinguished Storyteller Award was created to “recognize comic book creators who not only produce high-quality work, but also display a commitment to helping nurture and grow the comic book community as a whole, to which Kubert dedicated his life.” In addition to a career creating comics like Sgt. Rock, Hawkman and Fax from Sarajevo, the Eisner Hall of Fame member also founded the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in the 1970s, which still operates as the Kubert School today. Joe Kubert passed away in 2012.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Jason McNamara on ‘Sucker’

McNamara discusses his latest collaboration with artist Tony Talbert, an original graphic novel about vampires, the pharmaceutical industry and immortality.

A vampire stockbroker from the 1980s reemerges in the present day to find that a pharmaceutical industry wants to sink their teeth into him — and steal his immortality. Writer Jason McNamara (The Rattler) teams with longtime collaborator Tony Talbert (Continuity, First Moon, Less Than Hero) to bring this “mature readers” adventure to life. They’re joined by inker John Heebink and colorist Paul Little.

Using Kickstarter, the team hopes you’ll help them see their vision become a reality. We ran a preview of the new book last week, and I caught up with Jason to learn more about the new book, Kickstarter and more.

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Comics Lowdown: ‘XIII’ creator William Vance passes away

Plus: Police investigate Mangamura, the world’s largest comics collection and more.

Passings: The Belgian artist William Vance, creator of the French-language series XIII, has died at the age of 82 from Parkinson’s disease. Born William van Cutsem in Belgium in 1935, Vance served a year in the military and then studied for four years at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He began working for Tintin magazine (not the eponymous series, as stated in one obituary) in 1962, drawing four-page stories, and then launched the his first series, Howard Flynn (written by Yves Duval). He also was the artist for Bruno Brazil, and then he took over as the artist of Bob Morane, a series that had been started by Dino Attanasio. In 1984, he and Jean van Hamme launched XIII, a complex series partially inspired by Robert Ludlum’s Bourne character. Vance illustrated 18 volumes of XIII, which sold over 14 million volumes and was adapted into a television series. In 2010 he announced his retirement due to Parkinson’s disease.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Ellen Forney on ‘Rock Steady’

The creator of ‘Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me’ discusses her latest project, which is out now from Fantagraphics.

Ellen Forney has made many comics over the years that were collected in the books I Love Led Zeppelin and I Was 7 in ’75. She collaborated on the National Book Award winning novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Forney curated the traveling exhibition Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived & Well-Drawn. Most readers though know her for her book Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me.

Marbles was a stunning book. Both a personal story of her bipolar diagnosis, Forney also investigated the many myths around art and artists and how she has considered and lived with them in her own life. Her new book Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life, which has just been published by Fantagraphics, is a self help guide designed to help people dealing with anxiety, depression and other disorders. It is beautifully drawn, thoughtfully written, and provides a great deal of insight into these issues. She also created a helpful and hilarious mascot to help readers, Smedmerts!

Forney is on book tour right now. She’ll be at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena with Maria Bamford on Friday night before going to the East coast next week. I spoke with her at home before she left about the book and her work.

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Sink your teeth into a preview of ‘Sucker’

Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert team up to kickstart a new ‘grind house vampire adventure.’

The Rattler co-creator Jason McNamara has returned to Kickstarter with his longtime collaborator Tony Talbert for a new vampire tale called Sucker.

McNamara and Talbert have worked together on several projects in the past, including Continuity, First Moon and Less Than Hero. This time around they’re creating “a grind house vampire adventure” geared toward mature readers. John Heebink and Paul Little round out the creative team.

And we’ve got a 10-page preview you can check out below.

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‘Voracious’ unleashes an ‘Appetite for Destruction’ on Kickstarter

Markisan Naso and Jason Muhr wrap up their time-travel/foodie mash-up with a new miniseries later this year.

Voracious by Markisan Naso and Jason Muhr was an unexpected surprise back in 2016, as the interesting concept — a chef travels back in time to obtain dinosaur meat for his restaurant — turned into an even more interesting story about family, love, alternate dimensions and talking dinosaurs. The first miniseries, published by Action Lab Entertainment, spawned a sequel, and now the creators are turning to Kickstarter to bring a third one to life.

“With ‘Appetite for Destruction,’ Markisan and I finally get to complete Nate and company’s story,” Muhr said in a press release. “‘Destruction’ is our craziest arc yet. Readers have no idea where it’s all heading, and I’m having a blast working on some truly insane visuals. Fair warning: there will be blood!”

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Vertigo reveals artist line-up for Gaiman-curated ‘Sandman Universe”

Max Fiumara and Sebastian Fiumara, Bilquis Evely, Tom Fowler and Dominike “Domo” Stanton will help bring the new line to life later this year.

DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint has revealed the artists for the four “Sandman Universe” titles they announced earlier this year. Curated by Sandman writer Neil Gaiman, the line will kick off with a one-shot that’ll set up the return of three former Vertigo titles and one new one.

The creative teams for the four titles are:

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Smash Pages Q&A: A. David Lewis on ‘Kismet, Man of Fate’

The writer and comics scholar shares more about his webcomic collaboration with Noel Tuazon that brings a 1940s character into the present.

A. David Lewis is a comics scholar who’s written books like American Comics, Literary Theory and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife and co-edited many books including Muslim Superheroes: Comics, Islam and Representation, and Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Lewis is also the founder of CYRIC, Comics for Youth Refugees Incorporated Collective, which makes and distributes comics for children.

Lewis has written comics, but it wasn’t until recently that he wrote a superhero. Kismet, Man of Fate was a character originally created in 1944 as part of the wartime comic boom. An Algerian operative fighting the Nazi occupation in the original stories, Lewis along with artist Noel Tuazon (Elk’s Run, Tumor) has brought the character into the present in a series of new stories. After making some standalone short comics, the two have been serializing a new longer story. Kismet wraps up today and will be collected later this summer. I reached out to Lewis to talk about his many comics and comics-related projects.

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Koyama Press announces new project for this fall

Coming out of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this past weekend, Koyama Press has announced seven new projects that will see publication in the fall. The line-up includes graphic novels from Michael DeForge, Keiler Roberts, Mickey Zacchilli, Patrick Kyle and Nathan Gelgud, as well as two all-ages titles by Britt Wilson and John Martz.

“Familiar and fresh faces fill out our Fall season, which is chockfull of the diverse selection of artists and stories you’ve come to expect from Koyama Press,” the publisher writes on their blog.

Here’s a rundown of what to expect …

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